


Hanabi

by lettersfromnowhere



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Shipwrecked, F/M, Fake Marriage, I promise these tags will make sense eventually, Romance, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, very very soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:21:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 45,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27160406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lettersfromnowhere/pseuds/lettersfromnowhere
Summary: It should be easy: get to Omashu for a diplomatic summit, stay out of each other's way, and try not to confront a once-solid friendship that feels distant at best and hopelessly frayed at worst.Life, though, has decidedly less simple plans for the Fire Lord and the Ambassador.(Or: Katara and Zuko find themselves shipwrecked, and both wish the island they wind up on had been deserted. After all, there's no need to pretend to be married to your estranged best friend if there's no one around...)
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 325
Kudos: 351





	1. Takanae no Hana

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so excited to share this with you guys! I really don't have a ton to say, but I'm psyched about this. 
> 
> Also, note on the chapter titles: each one will be a Japanese word with no English translation, in keeping with the title. "Hanabi" _does_ translate, but I thought it would be cool to highlight some of the many awesome, untranslatable Japanese words that I've come across in the chapter titles. :)

_高嶺の花 /_ _Takane no Hana:_

_Something that is unobtainable, out of reach - roughly translates to_ _"flower on a high peak"_

_*******************_

Tonight, the world is living in a moment that Katara is not a part of.

Leaning against the palace balcony's railing, lost in thought, she stands atop a world that turns and turns and turns without her. She is weightless, but as she stares with unperceptive eyes out over the festival below, a heaviness she can neither shake nor explain pulls her solidly back down to the earth. She’s made her appearance, as she has at both of the annual Summer Solstice festivals she's attended in the Fire Nation since the war's end. She’s done what she has to do, and there is no reason more for her to be here, but she stays. Maybe it’s because she doesn’t know where else to be. Maybe it’s because some irrational part of her still hopes that there’s still something here that she’ll want to stay for. She pushes that thought aside, for the reason is unimportant; whatever it is, that reason is what got her here.

That’s the problem: she does not want to be here, nor does she want to be anywhere else. She has everything she wanted, but she no longer knows what she wants. She is torn in a thousand directions and as she runs in nine hundred and away from another hundred, she has no words, no words for this driving, consuming _panic._ She doesn’t know, doesn’t know, doesn’t know-

Ambassador Katara buries her head in her hands, her arms resting against the cold, unyielding stone of the banister, and as fireworks burst above her in brilliant color that she cannot see through her tears, she crumbles completely.

* * *

Zuko can _finally_ breathe as he leans against the veranda doors, but the air doesn’t seem to fill his lungs like it should. His shoulders heave as he tries in vain to catch breath that won’t come.

He has been dodging badgering ministers and advisors all night, so busy that he barely notices that the festival is winding slowly towards its conclusion. He’s made speeches and appearances - that's become par for the course in his two years as Fire Lord - and done his share of groveling, but he’s barely had a second to think, let alone enjoy the festivities.

Not that he would’ve, even if he _had_ gotten a free moment. Around him, laughter and music float from the festival crowd, but it swirls around him without sinking beneath his skin; his blood does not sing with the mirth of the night the way that everyone else’s seems to. In a sea of smiling faces awash with lamplight, Zuko has never felt more distant.

And so he finds himself here, leaning against the back of the balcony door. Its relief carvings, ornate floral patterns surrounding a carved dragon, press into his back, and he can hear but not see the fireworks as they burst in glorious, unseen color. He thinks he might hear muffled sobs on the other side of the door but he’s not present enough to know whose they are or what to do about them or if they’re even real.Bitterly, he almost wishes he could cry along with whoever might be on the other side, and he doesn’t even know _why._

Tomorrow, he’ll be gone. Today, stone walls hem him in, and he doesn’t have the energy to do anything more than hang his head in defeat.

They miss each other – barely – like an averted eclipse, the sun very nearly passing across the moon but swerving a second before the world goes dark. And so the moon’s watery light remains unblocked by the path of its counterpart, casting tear-tracks in its beams on the sleeping world below.

She cries and he does not know that what he heard was real and it was _her._

They just miss each other. Perhaps if they had not, things would have been different.

* * *

If Katara’s maid (she finds the very idea ridiculous) notices the puffiness of her eyes, she charitably says nothing. If anything, she’s even less attentive than usual as she pulls the pins from Katara’s updo and lets her hair loose for the night.

(She finds that ridiculous, too, the notion that she could _need_ someone to do something so simple. But no one would hear of her dismissal, so the maid stayed.)

“Your bags are packed for the morning, Ambassador," her maid, Kanon, says flatly, relaying information without an ounce of interest. It's little wonder that the Ambassador's overseas trip to a diplomatic summit in Omashu isn't of much interest to her, but very little about Katara's life _is._

Katara can’t blame her, though she narrows her eyes. “I packed my bags a few days ago.”

“The staff didn’t think that your wardrobe choices were suitable.”

“Why?” Katara’s too tired to be angry, but she wishes she had, at least, the energy to be annoyed.

“Not my doing.” Kanon shrugs. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” She presses her lips into a line; it’s truly not Kanon’s fault that the staff seems to take issue with everything Katara does. “Do you know where my luggage is?”

“I believe it’s already been loaded up, Ambassador.”

She curses under her breath, and again, Kanon charitably pretends not to notice. “Okay.”

“I’m sorry, Ambassador,” Kanon repeats. When Katara glances up and catches Kanon’s expression in the mirror, she looks as if she wants to say more; Katara can profoundly sympathize.

“It’s all right, Kanon.”

It’s a silly thing to be upset about, Katara tells herself, and she’s glad she’s too tired to care about anything but the sheets that await her. But…that’s been the story of the last six months, anyways.

Everything is too silly to be upset about. Everything upsets her anyway. And here she is, the niggling itch of irritation at the back of her mind vying for her attention even as she’s desperate to sleep, all over _luggage._

(All over the fact that her life has not been hers since she arrived here, and the fact that there hasn’t been a moment of her ambassadorship that she’s felt wholly _awake,_ and the fact that, the night before she leaves, she wonders if it was a mistake to stay.)

* * *

He is used to insomnia by now; he found months ago that he could only go many sleepless nights without falling into a pattern that he has no idea how to reverse. It’s all but normal, this inability to drift off. But tonight, it feels different. Tonight, he feels, almost overwhelmingly, that there is something so purely _amiss_ that nothing will be right until it is righted.

It’s easy to assign the blame to mounting tensions in the disputed border regions or any of the thousands of political headaches he must address every week. It’s not personal, at least, if he can twist this abiding sense of _wrongness_ until even he is almost convinced that political woes are all that trouble him. If he can do that, after all, his sadness does not have a face.

(He’s learned to be afraid of those. The faces that visit him in the gloaming hours are never kind; perhaps they once were but no longer are, or perhaps they were never kind at all. Regardless, he has found that faceless fears are more easily faced.)

And naming fears is far too close to facing them, so he dodges them, contorts the contents of his nightmares until even he cannot recognize them. He uses every argument in his repertoire and every tool in his possession against the onslaught of doubts and fears and nothing ever _works,_ but putting off is close enough to pulling through that he can say, in his waking hours, that he is fine, that _yes, Katara, I am taking care of myself –_

He wants to kick himself for that. The mere mention of her name these days is enough to bruise.

He turns his thoughts to the upcoming journey instead, and though he finds little comfort in the idea of another peacetime conference that will inevitably feel more like a battlefield than anything else, it’s distracting. That’s the standard nowadays – it need not be helpful or good or productive so long as it fills his mind. Distraction is key; anything that provides it is welcome, no matter how unpleasant, and he’s long past wondering how something he hates could be such a welcome relief.

(When he closes his eyes, finally, he imagines that a ship’s gentle listing is lulling him into sleep, and when he sleeps, he dreams of blue.

Part of him wants to recoil, but he does not.)

* * *

The slick hardwood of Katara’s chambers is cold to the touch when Katara steps out into the shafts of watery early-morning light filtering through the windows. It is always hot here, but great pains have been taken to keep the palace cool; more often than not, though, they keep heat out as much as they keep cool _in,_ and mornings are freezing here. She stretches, then pulls her arms tight around her. Cold’s never bothered her, but this isn’t _cold._ The South Pole was cold, and she can _do_ that. This is _chill,_ the kind that cuts through as many layers of clothing as she can put on and straight to the bones. It’s icier than any South Pole windstorm in her memory, and a thousand times lonelier, for there, she had warmth: home, hearth, family. Here she has only her thoughts and a friend grown all too distant for company.

She pulls a robe around her chemise as she dresses, knowing it will do nothing – chill to the heart and cold to the body are not the same – but unwilling not to try.

It is only the promise that she will be out to sea by mid-morning that cheers her enough to keep her moving, dressing as quickly as she can and throwing a few things she’d correctly assumed that the staff hadn’t packed into a shoulder bag. Though she has an open invitation to breakfast, she doesn’t see the need for it now; she’s far more content to use this time to settle in.

  
To settle in _before Zuko._

Her stomach twists painfully at the thought, a feeling she easily blames on hunger without a single ounce of conviction that its cause is truly so simple. But she’d rather do anything than admit to herself why she’s so out-of-sorts. And she’d rather do anything than ask when and why a friendship that once meant so much iced over.

( _How could someone who came so close to dying for me turn so cold so quickly?_

It’s a question she doesn’t want to ask, but she does anyway.)

So Katara boards the ship that will take them to Omashu hours early, pretending she has something to attend to when she only wishes that were true. She manages to find her luggage, frowns at the fussy clothes packed in place of her practical ones, and pokes around in the galley, hungry after skipping breakfast in an effort not to be seen. But as hard as she tries to occupy herself, she ends up in the cabin that she’s been assigned after only a few hours, her exhaustion bone-deep even though she’s done nothing at all.

  
(Running from one’s worries, she’s finding, is an exhausting exercise.)

Katara lets out a heavy sigh and leans back against the pillows, letting her eyes flutter shut even though entire stories play out behind her eyelids.

There is nothing to do but face the truth: even here, surrounded by her element, Katara is completely, entirely _alone._

* * *

It is going to be a long way to Omashu.

They realize it in tandem their first night aboard, stealing apprehensive glances at each other across a dining table made to seat far more than just two. Zuko keeps his head down as he eats, but his eyes flick upwards every few minutes, looking for a change in Katara’s resigned expression that never comes. Katara won’t even look at him, and when she speaks, it is perfunctory. Where once there was warmth and laughter in their every conversation, now there’s a kind of resigned sadness, some chill that neither of them wanted to feel but both brought on anyway.

They both wonder how it got there, but neither is going to ask. So they sit across a vast expanse of tabletop, tucking in noodles and broth, and stolen glances are the only proof either has that the other is even aware of their presence.

She tries to talk shop when she’s truly desperate, and something on Zuko’s face falls and darkens and crumples all at once when she tries to broach the topic of the diplomatic summit. If she notices, it doesn’t stop her; she continues on, rambling about agricultural products and reparations. She circles and takes sudden turns towards no end that Zuko can guess at.

That is how he knows to be worried: Katara doesn’t use excess words.

He simply nods, though, and if he hates himself for it, he reasons that she wouldn’t be going on like this if she _wanted_ to talk to him. She’s rambling; that’s what Katara does in awkward situations. She doesn’t want a conversation – she wants the pretense of politeness, to act as if everything is fine.

If she wants it that badly, Zuko can’t see why it _isn’t,_ but he doesn’t think he’s in a position to ask.

* * *

Rain beats the windows the second morning, and Katara wakes with what could have been an unabashed smile, in different times. She’s doubly surrounded, now: her element holds her up and it rains down around her, and it should be a happy occasion.

The Katara of seven months ago would be up on deck at a moment like this, arms thrown wide and face turned up towards the sky, laughing as she caught raindrops in her open hands. Zuko would be with her, if this were that easier time. He’d stand on the steps leading up to the deck, unwilling to risk a soaking if he left the half-shelter of the staircase; nevertheless, the rain would rush down to meet his clothes with as much enthusiasm as it did his friend’s, and he’d sulk like a preening dove-hen in the stairwell. Katara would laugh, grab his hands, and drag him out on deck, laughing all the while. He’d be peevish, as he was wont to be, but her joy would be infectious and he’d catch her eye and they’d laugh and laugh and _laugh,_ rushing back down the stairs into the warmth of the cabins moments later, hand-in-hand, with their soaked clothes clinging to their cold, clammy skin. He’d smile at her, she’d bask in his warmth-

But this is _now._

She sighs heavily as she swings her legs down and prepares to start a morning soured by her own hypothetical reminiscences.

* * *

Zuko doesn’t know what makes him do it, but he finds himself at Katara’s door a few hours after dawn. She opens it with obvious confusion – she’s not expecting visitors – that melts to something between relief and regret when she sees who’s on the other side.

Nevertheless, she lets him in, and he stands in the doorway, unsure why exactly he came here at all. _Stupid,_ he chastises himself, but then she smiles, a wan, cautious thing, and he’s suddenly pretty sure he knows.

“I missed you.”

  
The words simply fall out of his mouth unbidden, and he feels his stomach drop as if he’s falling from a great height when he hears them aloud. He stares at her, awaiting a reaction that he knows won’t be good because she’s _right here, why would you miss her?_

But it doesn’t come.

“Me too,” she says simply.

He has a feeling neither of them are going to make it as uncomplicated as all of that, but all he can feel in the moment is relief.

They don’t talk much, after that. She pats the plain white bedspread and he gingerly sits down beside her, listening to the rain. He sees her glance over at him every so often, and he always smiles, but he’s not sure if she sees him. It’s ridiculous, this stiltedness: she was his best friend, once, and she’s still the only ambassador to the Fire Nation that he hand-picked, still the fiercest champion of his nation’s downtrodden, still the girl he nearly died for.

(He’d do it again. It’s almost hurt to look at her these past months, but _Agni,_ he couldn’t care less. He’d do it a _thousand times.)_

All of that, and he can hardly look her in the eye. It’s all he can do to ask her for a game of pai sho without jumping overboard with embarrassment, because leading a nation has _nothing_ on that, for some incomprehensible reason. But she accepts, and he reconsiders the jumping-ship plan.

Katara is awful, circumventing every rule in the book and inventing new ones whenever the ones on file don’t align with her playing style, but it cheers them both. Zuko hears her laugh three games in, and he doesn’t know if he’s ever felt more relieved in his life. Soon, he’s stooped to her level just for the fun of it, tiles clacking and indignant cries ringing out as they both cheat each other at every turn.

(Iroh would be in tears, Zuko knows, if he witnessed this game of barely-even-pai-sho-anymore, but he’s been divested of any urge to be a purist by the fact that she looks almost happy again, her eyes bright and her cheeks flushed with mirth. He’d forgotten how much he’s missed that – she hasn’t been happy like this in a while.

At least, not around _him.)_

“Ha! Victory!” she crows, raising her fist as she captures his last tile, and Zuko lets out an exaggerated groan.

“Ka _tara,”_ he sighs, smiling too much to be taken seriously. “You’re such a _cheat!”_

“You cheat too!” she protests, primly stacking the last tile atop the last of the three even piles she’s been making as she takes his pawns. Then she raises her eyes with a wicked grin. “Just not as well as I do.”

“Just you wait, Ambassador,” he fires back, forgetting – miraculously – that things are _weird_ right now. “I’ll get you eventually. You’ll see.”

Katara’s smile falters for a moment, then, and he remembers why he hasn’t dared to risk a conversation like this – light, teasing, reminiscent of happier times – in six months.

“Right.” She swallows hard, standing. “Well, um. Thank you.”

  
“Yeah. Any time.” Zuko sees her off with a precursory wave of his hand. “Um…”

She turns back as she reaches the doorway. “Yeah?”

_I had fun,_ he wants to admit.

“Nothing,” he says instead.

Her face falls again. “Oh. Okay.”

He watches her go.


	2. Shouganai

_Shouganai / しょうがない_

_"It cannot be helped" - expresses lack of control over a situation_

_***_

The sea, four weeks into a voyage, is not particularly interesting. Katara, though, seems to think that it is.

On the third morning of the fourth week of their voyage, Zuko finds Katara at the railing, eyes cast out over the choppy cerulean surface of the water as the ship cuts through the waves. She’s looking out at something, though what that thing might be is a mystery – to Zuko, the sea looks as blank and featureless as an unmarked scroll, rolled out before them. But he doesn’t want to interrupt her, anyhow, so he keeps quiet when he makes his way to stand beside her.

She still notices his approach, though.

“Dolphins,” she says by way of an explanation. “There’s a pod of dolphins out that way.”

She isn’t gesturing at anything, so Zuko isn’t sure what ‘that way’ is, but he nods as if he is. “I see.”

  
Katara glances over at him. “No, you don’t,” she says flatly.

She’s right, of course – all he’s doing is staring out at the water. “I didn’t _literally_ mean that I saw them. I meant that…I don’t know, the other way that you would use ‘I see’? The figurative meaning? ‘I see’ like ‘I understand’-“

  
“Zuko.” Katara lays her palm gingerly against his forearm. “Slow down.”

“Right, sorry.” He shakes himself. “You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I do.” She shifts against the railing, relieving some of the weight on her elbows. “What are you doing out here?”

Zuko’s expression turns subtly sour. “Would you rather I went somewhere else?”

“No, I didn’t mean it like that.” Katara nonetheless removes her hand from his arm, tucking it into her sleeve. “It’s just…”

“It’s just what?” he asks.

“Nothing,” Katara demurs. She tucks a strand of hair that the wind has blown loose from her braid behind her ear. Her hand drifts back down to the railing but she lifts it before it makes contact, gesturing out towards the horizon. “Dolphins are out that way.”

“Why are you changing the subject?” Zuko asks, his voice bristling even though he tries to keep his voice even.

“I don’t want to talk about this, Zuko.” She presses her lips into a flat line. “And if the last six months mean anything, I wouldn’t think that _you_ would want to talk about it, either.”

“What does _that_ mean?” he crosses his arms, not sure whether to feel threatened or hurt. “What even _is_ ‘it’?”

“Do you really have to ask that?”

  
He’d expected Katara’s tone to be knife-point sharp, but it isn’t. Her voice is small and wounded and she curls in on herself, making her body small, and suddenly Zuko is overwhelmed with the need to hold and comfort her, to apologize for everything he’s ever done to hurt her and a lot of things he probably _hasn’t._

He doesn’t, though.

“Are you okay?” he asks, and he knows the moment she lifts her eyes to meet his that he’s said the wrong thing.

“Why are you acting so weird?” she asks, frustration seeping through the cracks where woundedness gives way.

“Um…I’m _not.”_ Zuko stubs the toe of his boot against the deck. “I’ve been giving you space because _you_ wanted it.”

Katara’s visibly trying not to snap at him. “Did I ever actually tell you that I wanted space?” she asks, her voice straining with the effort it takes not to let it rise.

“It was _obvious,”_ Zuko mutters, his shoulders slumping. She _didn’t,_ admittedly, ever say that, but…

  
He’d thought it was so clear.

“Zuko, think about this.” Katara turns to him, finally. “When I first became an Ambassador, I was alone in a foreign country and what felt like a thousand people breathing down my neck. Do you _really_ think I wanted distance from the one person in the entire Fire Nation who knew me and…and cared about me?”

Put like that, Zuko can’t even begin to explain his logic. “Um, well, no.”

“Exactly.” Katara looks him unflinchingly in the eyes. “What was I supposed to _think,_ Zuko? How did you think I was going to respond to that?”

“Respond to what?”

“You being all… _weird!”_ Katara throws up her hands. “You would _always_ avoid me, and-“

“You could have talked to me, Katara. You could’ve _told_ me that you felt that way.” Zuko crosses his arms. “But you got all closed-off, and I thought you wanted to be left alone, and…you never exactly corrected me. You should’ve _said_ something.”

“Yeah, I could’ve,” she admits. “But…I shouldn’t have _had_ to.”

They stand in silence for a moment. _I didn’t know,_ Zuko wants to say in his defense, but he doesn’t. Because he _did_ know – he’d known she was lonely and isolated and…

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, leaning almost imperceptibly towards her. “I shouldn’t have put you in that position.”

“I shouldn’t have expected you to notice that I was a mess when you had an entire country to run,” Katara offers in return. “But I’m sorry, too.”

“That isn’t an excuse, Katara,” Zuko counters. “I appointed you to that position. I should’ve made sure you were doing okay.”

“It wasn’t _that,_ Zuko.” Katara looks up at him, sidelong. “I didn’t want a supervisor. It’s…it’s not a transaction – ‘you do this, so I should do that.’ I wanted…” She inhales shakily. “I just wanted my friend back.”

He’s not sure what to say, even though he’s almost overwhelmed with the desire to say _something._ She picks up the conversation after a moment of silence.

“The dolphins are still out that way,” she says feebly, grabbing his hand in hers with a desperate, half-scared look and moving it until it points to a cluster of dark spots partway to the horizon. Then she drops it like it’s burning-hot, and it stays, pointing steadily out to the spot Katara had indicated. His golden eyes train on the spot and he nods in recognition after a moment.

“I see them now.”

They both train their eyes on the horizon and watch as the far-off dolphins’ dorsal fins break the water, over and over, and neither says a single word.

* * *

Katara takes her dinner in her cabin that night. The rain’s picked up again, and the ship’s rocking sloshes the egg-drop soup around in its bowl on her nightstand. But she doesn’t eat; she paces the floor, and the soup sits untouched, rapidly cooling.

She can’t eat and think at once.

Zuko’s words bounce around in her mind as she paces, her hands finding any traction they can against the room’s sparse furniture to steady herself. _I-didn’t-know-I-didn’t-know-I-didn’t-know,_ his voice in her head insists, and his guilt-wracked expression won’t leave her mind. As much as she had fought to keep herself from lashing out, she’d _wanted_ to; here, by way of clenched fists, she does.

Because she didn’t _care_ that he was the Fire Lord, that he had a thousand responsibilities more pressing than her adjustment to life in his palace. She’d never had the chance to be outwardly selfish, and she hadn’t been – she’d kept quiet, never let slip that she needed his company in the desperate loneliness that had defined her early days as the Southern Water Tribe’s ambassador to the Fire Nation. But inwardly she had raged; she’d cried in the quiet of her chambers, isolated from all she knew and beset on all sides, cried for dashed expectations. She’d known, when she took the position, that it would not be easy, but she’d always reassured herself. _I’ll have Zuko,_ she’d thought. But the warmth of his welcome hadn’t lasted more than a handful of weeks, when politics took precedence over personal matters and she was once again alone.

By the time they’d boarded this ship bound for Omashu, they’d been close to strangers.

(Strangers who’d fought and lived and nearly died together, strangers who were – should still be – the best of friends. It’s an oxymoron so preposterous that Katara almost can’t stomach it, but it is her reality, and she’s never been in the habit of denying the undeniable.)

She continues to pace, the tapping of her boots growing sharper and quicker against the floorboards. Her breathing quickens, and the backs of her eyes pricked dangerously, but she doesn’t even think of stopping. Fierce gusts of wind whistle past the wooden walls of her cabin, and the ship’s sheet-metal exterior creaks as it lists; she walks on. The egg-drop soup on her nightstand sloshes perilously, but she doesn’t notice when the broth slaps against the sides with enough force to jump out of the bowl and trail down the nightstand.

“I miss you,” she mutters under her breath, halfway to tears. “I miss you, and you’re _right here_ and I can’t even talk to you, and when I try I just…I just…”

A sob wracks her shoulders before she can recognize and counteract it, but she’s not sure if she would have even if she could.

This isn’t the way that things are supposed to be, and though she’d thought for months that talking to Zuko would make things better, now that she has, it’s _worse._

As a swell rocks the ship, the last of Katara’s soup, nearly all gone by now, is lost when the bowl teeters on the edge of her nightstand and falls, face-first, to the ground below.

* * *

Zuko is most ashamed of the fact that he cannot, when pressed, explain _why_ he did it. He pushes his egg-drop soup around in its bowl, staring down into it as if he’ll find an easy answer in broth and egg ribbons; it swishes gently from side to side, listing with the ship and cooling as it sits, uneaten, in its bowl. In the silence of the empty dining room, punctuated only by the sound of the winds buffeting the ship, he feels the press of guilt, and he wishes he could say _why._

But he _can’t_ explain why he’s been so distant. He can’t say that he simply didn’t notice her: it was hard _not_ to. Katara has never been anything less than a force of nature, and she’s approached her work as ambassador with the same gung-ho zeal. When she began, she’d taken the Fire Nation to task with little thought for anything but the inexcusable suffering of its people. But she’d made herself enemies in the process, and slowly, the bright-eyed enthusiasm that she’d brought to her work began to fade. The loneliness of living so far from home and the sorry state of the Fire Nation wore on her; she lost none of her conviction but much of her energy, and when Zuko had looked for her, he’d find her locked in her room. He hadn’t thought it wise to intrude.

After far too long, he’d learned to stop knocking, and she’d learned to keep to herself. Then resignation turned to avoidance, and they were barely more than passing acquaintances.

And now he knows, hearing her side of things, that it was _he_ who drove her away as much as the councilmen who’d set themselves against Katara the moment her tenure began. Zuko knew something was wrong, that he could’ve done something, but he did not. He could have checked in with her, tried to figure out what was wrong, but he did not. He could have _tried,_ but he did not. And he realizes with a sinking sensation in his stomach that he had no reason not to do any of those things.

Yes, he’s been busy. Yes, she’s often needed space in the past. But those aren’t excuses his guilt-wracked brain can accept anymore. He can chalk his behavior up to Katara’s implicit prompting as much as he likes but he knows, at the end of the day, that it was nothing but cowardice that strained their friendship. And he cannot, for the life of him, figure out _why_ he didn’t take it upon himself to fix things. It would not be difficult; she would not be unreceptive; he would enjoy her company. So _why…?_

Maybe it’s guilt, compounded over the months they’ve spent together; perhaps it’s the memories of the Agni Kai that he can’t help but call up when he is around her ( _I was almost too late, almost too slow, almost got her killed-)._ Or maybe it’s nothing more than stubborn pride.

But whatever it is, it’s about time he admit it.

Zuko stands so quickly that his chair teeters dangerously on its back legs, abandoning the bowl of soup that he still hasn’t bothered to eat as he storms off. He’d done nothing then; he can do something now.

The soup bowl, which has been inching ever-closer to the edge of the table since it was set in front of him, tips, but Zuko doesn’t notice. He _will_ do something now.

As the ship sways, he has to grope around in the dimly-lit corridor for something he can use to steady himself. His hands find a wall first and he pushes himself off of it with enough momentum to keep himself moving. The hallway lanterns swing frantically as he makes his way to Katara’s cabin, but he barely notices, half-focused on getting where he wants to be and half-focused on what he’s going to do once he gets there. He doesn’t have a plan _,_ but he’s fairly confident that he will by the time he arrives – it’s certainly taking him long enough, what with the ship pitching from side to side like it is.

But he stumbles into her room with none at all.

* * *

Zuko doesn’t knock, and Katara doesn’t open the door. No, he all but falls over the threshold, and when he meets her tear-stained eyes, it’s all she can do not to bury herself in his arms and cry away the misery of the past six months.

But she doesn’t.

Instead, she scrubs hastily at her puffy eyes and stammers, “uh, Zuko…hi.”

“I’m sorry.”

She blinks at him a few times, sadness turning quickly to confusion. “For…?”

“Agni, Katara, _everything.”_ He can barely even look at her, but he takes a few steps closer anyways. She shies away, though, until she’s nearly backed against the wall behind her. He takes the hint and backs away in return. “I’m…I’m an _idiot.”_

“You’re going to have to be a lot more specific.” Katara crosses his arms, her red cheeks the only remaining evidence that she’s been crying. “How exactly were you-“

She doesn’t get to finish, her words swallowed by a startled yelp as a massive swell rocks the ship and she stumbles back into the wall. Zuko, who’s been standing in the center of the room with nothing to anchor himself, pitches forward. Without thinking, Katara catches him; he slumps against her, pressing her to the wall, before Katara’s eyes go wide and she pushes him off. It’s no use, though, when the ship creaks and sways over another swell; he falls right back into her, and this time, she unpins herself, grabbing his arm and making a break for the bed. She sits, bracing herself against the headboard, and Zuko follows along.

Then she meets his eyes, and they’re as wide and terrified as his.

“Zuko,” she says, breathless with adrenaline, “what was that?”

“I have no idea,” he admits, because even in his four years of life on a ship, it was never battered this way.

“This storm isn’t stopping,” Katara says pointlessly. It’s obvious, but she doesn’t feel like it would be right to leave things silent.

“Nope.” Zuko glances out the porthole. “See those atolls? We’re supposed to be way out at sea right now. We’re probably already off-course, and this isn’t going to help.”

“I could try-“

  
Zuko fixes her with a warning glare. “Katara, _no.”_

“But I could do something about this!” Katara throws up her hands. “We’re not going to make it to the conference on time if we’re off-course, and _I-“_

“Katara, I trust you, but I’m not crazy enough to let you fight the _entire ocean_ by yourself!”

“Um, those atolls are getting _closer!”_ Katara points out, gesturing towards the porthole. The islands that once dotted the horizon loom in view. The surface of the sea surrounding them is darker in patches, a clear indicator of the coral beneath, and her eyebrows rise. “I really don’t think that’s supposed to be-“

She’s interrupted by a sickening creak, and soon, the sound of shouting on deck draws them both out of the cabin. Steadying themselves against the walls of the frantically-pitching ship, they run, hand in hand, up the stairs and onto the deck.

They arrive to find it in chaos: countless crew members slip across the rain-slicked metal in a rush, the cluster of atolls looms dangerously close, and shouts made incomprehensible by the raging winds ring out in all directions. Katara throws an appraising glance around the deck before she makes up her mind.

“We have to have hit a reef,” she shouts over the wind. “There’s no way we can get out without-“

“Taking on water,” Zuko finishes. “What do we do? Can you just bend the water out?”

  
“I can, but I can’t repair a hole,” she says, biting her lip. “I could try to ice it over, but it won’t hold, so…”

“So?”

“We have to get as many people as we can off the ship before that happens,” Katara replies, struggling to be heard as thunder claps. “If we jump ship here, I can cushion our landing, and we can shelter on these atolls until someone comes looking for us.”

“They won’t abandon the ship on speculations!”

“But…they _have_ to!” Katara protests. “They’re going to die if they don’t and this is our best chance to-“

“They-“

“Everyone!” Katara shrieks, taking matters into her own hands. “We need to get off this ship before it goes down!”

Several of the sailors look at her, but none obey.

“If we get off here, I can save you!” she tries again. Again, nothing.

“See? I told you!” Zuko cries. “It’s a _thing._ You don’t give up your ship until you don’t have a choice!”

“If they wait ten more minutes, they _won’t!”_

“Yeah, but they’re going to do it anyway,” Zuko says, though he’s fairly certain she can’t hear him. “Just…get off, Katara. Jump ship and save yourself. The rest of the crew and I will be fine!”

“I’m not risking your life, Zuko.” Katara shakes her head resolutely. “If I’m jumping ship, you’re jumping ship with me.”

“I can’t abandon my crew, Katara.”

“But you can’t abandon your country, either!” Katara protests.

“Katara, I’m serious. I’ll be _fine!_ If the ship goes down, I’ll jump when we _know_ we can’t save it-“

Katara is done listening. "Okay, new plan," she pants, already exhausted just from yelling over the wind. "I get you off and then I go back for as much of the crew as I can-"

"Katara, they won't _let_ you." He shakes his head. " _I_ won't let you." 

She ignores him, naturally, and takes his arm, bending the water out from under her own feet but not his so that she can run but he cannot resist. And by the time she reaches the railing, she has enough momentum to use the slickness of the deck to pull him over with her. Their landing is smooth, cushioned by the water she bends around them, and as soon as they do she tries to swim back towards the ship, determined to do what little she can. But even a master waterbender has nothing on the ocean’s rage, and before she can react, she’s pulled under, pushed by a swell in a direction she cannot be sure of. Panicked, she can’t even think to bend herself to safety.

She hears Zuko call her name before the world disappears into a dark, featureless haze.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just wanted to confirm that yes, Katara DID intend to go back for the rest of the crew, but she clearly didn't get that chance. We'll see how that plays out in the next chapter.


	3. Ikigai

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get ready for convenient coincidences and EXPOSITION x100. I tried to integrate the worldbuilding naturally rather than infodumping, but I did need to do it, so apologies for that. That said, I hope you like my worldbuilding! :)
> 
> And yes, Somboon is *supposed* to be irritating. If you want to punch him, so do I.

_Ikigai / 生き甲斐_

_Reason for living; the thing that gets you up in the morning._

_*****_

  
Katara wakes in a foggy-headed haze with a crust of salt coating her skin and a mouthful of sand. She’s barely awake, but at least she has the presence of mind to spit it out. As she coughs, sand apparently having coated her throat, too, she takes stock of her surroundings.

She’s lying on the sand of some unfamiliar beach, her limbs contorted, and Zuko lays beside her, just beginning to stir. He, too, coughs, and she gets a better view of him: he looks as haggard as she’s ever seen him, exhaustion written in every line of his face and salt stiffening his hair. She knows from the way the sun beats down on her that it’s at least midday by now; she wonders how long she’s been out. It was hard to tell what time it was when she last checked, what with the storm-

_Oh, Spirits. The storm._

“Zuko?” Katara asks, any urgency her voice meant to carry choked out by the dryness in her throat. “Zuko, wake up.”

“Mmf,” he groans, turning to his other side. “Yeah?”

“The ship,” she blurts out, her face blanching. “We have to go back for the crew! They’re-“

“K’tara, it sank,” Zuko mutters, rubbing his temples. Katara can tell just by looking at him that his head must be pounding. “Nothing we can do anymore.”

“What do you mean it _sank?”_ Katara scrambles to sit up, only to fall back to the sand with a pained grunt when the sudden movement makes her head spin. “Wh…what-“

“You were unconscious,” he says, and she wonders for a moment if it’s fear she sees in his eyes or just pain. “You tried to go back for them, but you got dragged under and it looked like you hit your head or something, and…I guess it knocked you out.”

“I…I was unconscious?”

  
That would certainly explain a great deal.

Zuko nods weakly. “I wanted to go back, too, but you were going to drown if I didn’t get you to shore.”

“But the crew-“

“Some of them probably made it,” Zuko tries to reassure her, but even he doesn’t look convinced. “They were in pretty shallow water when the ship went down.”

She does not know whether to be relieved that they are alive, guilt-stricken because she saved herself and not the dozens of crew members who probably went down with the ship, or grateful that Zuko, in all probability, saved her life. But her head is entirely too fuzzy to decide.

“So…where are we?”

Zuko shrugs. “One of those little islands off of the reef. Don’t know anything about them.”

“No supplies?” even (probably) concussed, Katara’s first thought is for the practical.

“Nope.” Zuko shakes his head. “We’re kind of screwed.”

“Well, we’re certainly not getting to the conference in time,” Katara adds with a helpless shrug.

“Oh, Agni, they’re going to think we died,” Zuko groans, burying his face in his hands. “What else are they _supposed_ to think when I don’t show up?”

“Well, you’re not,” Katara says as firmly as she can in the face of her fear and guilt and reeling head. “And we’re going to get back.”

“You have a concussion, we have no supplies, and as far as we know, there’s no way off this island,” Zuko argues. “We need to focus on _surviving,_ not _escaping.”_

“Oh? So you want to live the entire rest of your life on an uninhabited island?” Katara fires back, because arguing with Zuko is familiar and safe and she needs that right now.

“I’d rather that the entire rest of my life be longer than a week!” he snaps, and that’s when she knows her diversion has worked.

Maybe if she can get him thinking about something slightly less existentially threatening than their current predicament, they’ll both forget where they are. It’s stupid, but it might just work.

“Yeah, but who is your council going to put on the throne when it’s been months since you’ve been seen and they think you’re dead?” she challenges.

“My uncle,” Zuko says. He’s clearly thought about this.

“And after your uncle?”

“Um…”

“Your sister?” Katara quirks a brow. It’s an incredibly low blow, but she’ll do _anything_ right now to make him understand how urgent this is. “Or some distant cousin?”

“Katara…”

“Look, Zuko, I know.” She lets her shoulders slump. “I get it. But you can’t just _give up.”_

“I’m not, Katara.” His voice is low, broken. “I’m just being realistic.”

“You thought you were being realistic when you told me you wouldn’t jump ship yesterday,” Katara says gently. She tries to shove down her regret at what she’s said, but it won’t stay down. “Why are you so quick to give up?”

“You almost died because I did that.” He looks up at her and only then does Katara see the bags under his eyes. “Do you think I’m going to let you talk me into doing something like that again?”

“I’m just saying that you can’t give up!”

“I’m not giving up, Katara. If I were giving up, I would just lay here until I stopped breathing. That isn’t what I’m suggesting we do.”

“And that’s good, but it isn’t _enough.”_

“Says the one who has a concussion that she’s ignoring?”

“Well, what am I going to do about that?”

“I don’t know, heal yourself?”

“I don’t even know if I _could,”_ she mutters. “I mean…where would I even find water?”

“We’re on an _island,_ Katara.” Zuko glares at her. “Aren’t islands definitionally surrounded by water?”

“I don’t know if healing with saltwater even works.”

“Why wouldn’t it? You’re healing yourself, not drinking it.”

Katara lets out a heavy sigh. “Fine,” she mutters, standing shakily. Her feet feel like they’re made of lead with every step towards the ocean, lapping the shore a few yards away. Her knees hit the sand the moment she reaches the waterline, and she feels infinitely worse for having moved, but she pulls the water to her hands and presses it against her forehead, willing the dizziness in her head to dissipate.

She nearly cries when it does, and she stands with no more issue than a lingering soreness in her neck from the odd position she slept in.

“Thanks,” she says weakly when she sits down beside Zuko again, and he just nods. 

* * *

Zuko isn’t particularly successful in his efforts to find anything edible, no matter how much of the island he patrols. But he _does_ eat his words, several hours later.

  
It’s really not his favorite dish.

“Zuko!” Katara cries, running from the beach to meet him as soon as he returns from another unsuccessful foray to find provisions. “See that? Out there?”

“What out where?” Zuko narrows his eyes. “Are you okay?”

“There!” she says, gesturing vaguely out over the ocean. “Do you see it now?” 

“Um, no?”

“Okay, here.” She takes his hand and moves it until it points in the direction where she wants him to look. “Do you see that boat?”

“Are you sure you’re not seeing things?” Zuko asks when his eyes finally focus, because he _does_ see something moving but he doesn’t want to raise his hopes. “That could be…I don’t know, an animal or something.”

“It’s a boat, Zuko,” Katara insists. “See? I _told_ you!”

“Well, isn’t that a lucky coincidence,” he mutters, though he’s relieved beyond belief that she appears to be right.

He plays it off, too stubborn to admit that Katara’s desire to find a way home is probably more logical than his own desire to stay put and hope for the best, but he would _really_ rather not come home to Fire Lord Azula.

“We can get whoever’s on it to take us back,” Katara says, squinting as the boat comes closer. “What are the odds, right?”

“What are the odds that the owners of a boat they can barely fit themselves in agree to take on two random strangers? Slim,” Zuko says, because it’s all his stubborn pride will allow him to say.

“We have to _try,”_ Katara says, and he no longer has the energy to argue.

* * *

They’re still waiting at the shoreline when the boat – an outrigger, on closer inspection, piloted by a man a little older than Zuko, perhaps in his late twenties, and a teenage boy – strikes the shore. For a moment after they disembark, its owners simply stare, evidently not having expected to find anyone upon arriving on this atoll.

“Um.” The teenage boy clears his throat, then looks to the older man. “You didn’t say that this island was inhabited.”

“It isn’t,” the man says warily, his hand drifting to a weapon that Katara doesn’t recognize sitting in his belt.

“We were shipwrecked,” Katara explains, shrugging helplessly. “We’ve only been here for a couple of hours but-“

“That wreck we saw offshore,” the boy offers. “Was that your ship?”

“Yes!” Katara’s so relieved that he seems to be believing their story that she briefly wonders if she’ll cry. It would be stupid, but she’s been through far too much today to care.

“Hm.” The older man sizes them up. “What exactly were you and your husband doing out this far to begin with?”

_Husband?_

Katara narrows her eyes, then realizes he probably assumed they were married since, given that they’re obviously not related, it’s the most logical explanation for their traveling together. “Um, we were on our way to Omashu,” she says. Behind her, Zuko stands stock-still, saying absolutely nothing. “For-“  
  


“Our honeymoon,” Zuko cuts in.

“Oh. Newlyweds.” The older man’s face softens a little bit. “Sorry about that.”

“We would very much appreciate it if you took us with you when you left,” Katara says, focusing her pleading gaze on the obviously-more-vulnerable teenager. “If…if you have room?”

“Of course we can!” the boy pipes up, and the older man doesn’t protest. She’s grateful, now, that their canoe is far larger than it looked out on the horizon.

“Help us find what we came here for and we’ll do it,” the man agrees.

“I can’t thank you enough,” Katara says, and he just gestures for her to follow. “So, what are you looking for?”

“Southern Lily-Wort,” he tells her, and she and Zuko trail after their rescuers. “This is one of the only places it grows.”

“Southern Lily-Wort,” Katara repeats, wondering where she’s heard that name before. “Oh! For some sort of medicine?”

“His wife is sick,” the boy confirms. The man elbows his side.

“I’m sorry,” Katara says, wondering if this might be a good time to let slip that she’s probably a more effective cure than any rare weed. The warning glare that Zuko gives her stops her, though.

“Where do you think it’ll be?” Zuko asks, if only to stop her from giving away too much. His mistrust of these people, no matter how trustworthy they seem, is written all over his face.

“It’s parasitic. It’ll be growing out of a tree trunk,” he tells them. “Shouldn’t be hard to find.”

“You must’ve come a long way to find this,” Katara comments. “This island’s so far from…well, everything.”

“It took a week to get here,” the teenager grouses. He turns back to Katara, and she gets a better look at him: he’s a little shorter than she is and string-bean skinny with sun-bronzed skin and a mop of black hair that hasn’t coped particularly well with his time at sea. In coloration, he could be Water Tribe, but his broad face resembles that of a Fire National far more. His appearance is disheveled, but his smile never falters. “And this one” – he gestures with his thumb to his companion – “wouldn’t talk the whole time.”

“You did enough talking for both of us,” the other man mutters. “Pick up the pace, Somboon. We need to be past the reef before dark.”

“Somboon?” Zuko repeats. “That’s Fire Nation, isn’t it?”

The boy – Somboon, apparently – nods. “My family’s from Sawadee,” he says.

“Where’s that?” Katara asks. She’s never heard of it.

“On the southern coast.” Zuko stops as the man bends to inspect the trunk of a tree. “How did you get here in a week if you were coming from Sawadee? I would think that would take at least a month.”

“Oh, no, we’re not _from_ Sawadee,” Somboon says. “We actually live on Wakuine.”

“Never heard of it, so it must not be Fire Nation.” Zuko shrugs, and if Somboon thinks the casual authority with which he makes that statement is strange, he doesn’t mention it. “Where’s Wakuine?”

“Takes about a week of sailing west to get there,” the man tells them, straightening with a plant in his hand. “Thanks for the help, Somboon. Couldn’t have found this without you.”

Somboon beams, until he realizes the man is being facetious. His face crumples. “Sorry,” he mutters.

“I’m guessing Wakuine is an island,” Katara cuts in. “So…how far is it from, well, anything?”

“Oh, far.” Somboon doesn’t seem bothered by this. “No one ever comes. Even our supply shipments only come by once a year.”

  
“Once a _year?”_

“Oh, yeah. Ships can’t dock ‘cause we don’t have…well, a dock, so everything they bring has to be unloaded onto canoes and brought back to shore,” Somboon explains. “We’re pretty self-sufficient, and it’s a lot of work, so they don’t really bother to come by much.”  
  


“That must be why you needed to come here,” Katara realizes, latching onto that seemingly-unimportant information because if she thinks about the implications of what Somboon is telling them, she knows she’ll spiral. “Because you weren’t going to be able to get medicine from the mainland.”

Somboon nods. “This was our best shot. We didn’t know if Kehale’s wife-“

“Shut _up,_ Somboon.”

“-would make it without this,” Somboon finishes. “Oh, also, this is Kehale.” He gestures to his companion; he’s taller and far more muscular than Somboon is, with the same brown skin and hair just as matted but much longer and a face that doesn’t even slightly resemble Somboon’s.

“I’m Lee,” Zuko immediately cuts in, and Katara realizes why after a moment. _Aliases. He’s not telling them who he is._ She takes the hint.

“I’m, um…Kanna,” she says, fumbling for names and coming up only with her Gran-Gran’s. “Nice to meet you, uh…Kehale.”

“Yeah.” Kehale nods curtly. “Let’s just get back to the boat.”

“Sorry,” Somboon says as they trail Kehale back to his outrigger. “He’s usually a lot nicer than this. He’s just worried about-“

“Somboon Theeravit, I swear by every Spirit, if you don’t shut up-“

“His wife,” Somboon finishes.

“He obviously doesn’t want to talk about this, Somboon,” Zuko tells him. “Could you just…I don’t know, _not?”_

Katara eyes him, surprised. She’s a little uncomfortable with the boy’s blatant insensitivity, too, but she isn’t about to jeopardize their way off this island by saying it; Zuko, apparently, has no such misgivings. Kehale doesn’t say anything in reply, but when he glances over his shoulder at Zuko, his expression is grateful. And Katara knows that Somboon is right: he’s obviously not an ill-tempered man, not if he’d cross an ocean to give his wife a fighting chance or let two shipwrecked strangers stow away on his canoe. She knows, merely looking at him, that he truly is worried for his wife.

Katara resolves, if only to distract herself from the horrifying fact that, even with Kehale and Somboon’s help, it could be a year before they’re back in the Fire Nation, to make sure he worries in vain.

* * *

“You’re a waterbender?” Somboon’s eyes widen when he notices Katara trailing her hand over the edge of the boat, bending delicate patterns and tiny whirlpools as the boat skims over the surface of the sea. She’s been doing this for two days now, for there’s little else to occupy their week at sea save for Somboon’s never-ending chatter, but he’s never noticed.

“Yeah,” she replies flatly, figuring that there’s no point in trying to cover it up.

“Kehale is a waterbender, too!” Somboon tells her. “Hey, Kehale-“

“I heard her,” Kehale interrupts him. “You any good?”

“Um…” Katara’s not sure how much she should tell him, but Zuko makes the call for her.

“Incredible,” Zuko replies, and she can’t help but smile. Their friendship’s faltered lately, but his faith in her never wavers – she loves that about him.

“No, I’m really just-“

“Can you make this boat go any faster?” Somboon’s practically bouncing on his toes. “I wanna get home.”

“I…could,” Katara says cautiously. “And...aren’t you guys from the Fire Nation?”

 _How are you a waterbender?_ She asks without asking.

“We’re Ausa,” Kehale replies.

“You’re Ausa?” Zuko’s eyes widen. “I didn’t even know that-“

“We still existed?” Kehale sighs. “Well, now you do.”

“I’m confused,” Katara mutters.

“Ever heard of the Sea People?” Kehale asks. When Katara shakes her head, he continues. “Group of voyaging waterbenders? Is that not ringing any bells?”

“I…no,” Katara says hesitantly. “How…how did I not know about this?”

“There aren’t many left,” Kehale explains. “They were nomadic, but the closest they ever came to settling in one place was on this archipelago off the Fire Nation coast. And they started trading with the southern provinces, and intermarrying, and soon they were an entire group of their own.”

“They called them the Ausa,” Somboon cuts in. “Some of them firebenders, some of them waterbenders, but…none of them really just one or the other anymore.”

“Most of the Ausa fled the Fire Nation at the beginning of the war,” Kehale explains. “They bent another element, so…even though they were mostly living in the Fire Nation, they were a target. They wanted to get as far from the Fire Nation as they could,” he finishes. “The only Sea People still alive are Ausa whose families didn’t intermarry with Fire Nationals.”

“Like Kehale’s family,” Somboon adds. “I’m mostly Sawad, except I don’t bend anything. His wife’s Sawad, too.”

“Somboon. Shut. _Up.”_

“I had no idea,” Katara murmurs. “There’s…an entire group of waterbenders I’ve never even _heard_ of?”

“We’re a little bit hard to find.” Kehale shrugs. “I’m surprised that Lee knows that we exist. It’s not a very well-known story.”

“Well, I had an extensive education,” Zuko says under his breath. 

“Are there any more of you?” Suddenly Katara has a thousand questions and her predicament is all but forgotten. “What’s your bending style like? Do you heal? Have you tried waterbending to heal your wife? Why haven’t you been speeding the boat up?”

“Yes, but we don’t know where they are; I have no idea; a little bit; yes, but it hasn’t worked; and I don’t know, Kehale, why _haven’t_ you?” Somboon answers, not missing a beat. “Kanna, can _you_ speed the boat up?”

With a wicked smile in spite of herself and a flick of her wrist, Katara brings up a gentle swell at the stern of the boat to push it forwards. Zuko nearly pitches forwards into the mast at the sudden increase in speed.

“Wow,” Somboon says appreciatively. “This is _so_ much better than lily-wort!”

Kehale, crossing his arms, simply glares.

* * *

Privacy proves hard to come by on a boat barely big enough for two. It’s an unfortunate setup, because for the first time in months, Zuko desperately wants to talk to Katara – _privately_ – and he can’t, not without being overheard. So it’s a lucky break when Kehale (nearly always silent) and Somboon (almost never silent) both agree to let Katara man the sails for the night, while they sleep.

“So…we could be stuck here for a year,” Katara sighs, turning to Zuko. She knows he’s awake.

“Maybe we could try to get a message back to the Fire Nation once we arrive,” Zuko offers. “Or take one of these canoes home?”

“Hardly. I don’t think a canoe of this size would take us all the way back to Caldera.”

“It took them all the way to…whatever that island was!” Zuko protests.

“Well, we’ll see if we can tell someone where we are,” Katara says. “But if they only get ships in once a year, I doubt their mail system is all that great.”

Zuko’s shoulders slump. “We’re stuck out here, aren’t we?”

Katara shakes her head. “Looks like it.”

“Better than starving, though.”

Neither can argue with that.

* * *

On the seventh morning of the voyage, Katara is jolted awake when a swell rocks the outrigger and pushes her into Zuko. He’s already awake, and he catches her before he can push them both over the side.

“You awake?” he asks. “We’re here.”

“Here? Like, on the island?” she blinks groggily and then takes in her surroundings. 

“Yeah.”

  
And she sees very quickly why he didn’t feel the need to elaborate on that. Ringing the short expanse of canoe-lined beach they’re sailing for are sheer, vine-covered cliffs.

“Welcome to Wakuine,” Somboon says without any of his usual pep. “Get ready to climb.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes on worldbuilding: the Ausa are a mixed-heritage group whose culture blends Thai and Polynesian influences. The Sawad, aka people from Sawadee, a southern FN province, have a culture based on that of Thailand. The Sea People are based on the peoples of Polynesia. Those cultures sort of mingle in the Ausa culture ("Ausa" = "steam" in Samoan, because I'm not creative). I will do my absolute best to do justice to both of those cultures here.


	4. Majime

_まじめ / Majime_

_Someone who is earnest and reliable; someone who gets things done._

_***_

“I see why no one ever comes here now.” Katara doesn’t know why she’s wasting her breath on the words when the burning in her muscles and the knowledge that she could fall to her death if she gives into it are already stealing it from her lungs, but she does anyway.

“Yup,” Somboon huffs, hauling himself up the rope ladder next to the one she’s on with strength that belies his skinny frame. “Just be glad we replaced these recently.”

  
She is, and she suspects they all are. These rope ladders are the only way up the face of the cliffs that separates the village of Wakuine from the beach, and if the one she’s climbing were to break, they’d plummet hundreds of feet. She wonders how often they have to replace the ladders to make sure that doesn’t happen, but she doesn’t ask; no one needs the distraction right now.

“Less talking, more climbing,” Kehale says impatiently, and they redouble their pace, climbing as rapidly as they safely can. Katara throws a glance back at Zuko, climbing behind her, every few moments, and he gives her a tiny nod – _I’m okay if you are –_ each time.

(She realizes with a pang that he’s probably climbing behind her in case she falls.)

It takes all of half an hour to climb the three hundred feet of the cliff’s face, and by the time Katara stumbles onto solid ground at the top of the cliff, her legs are shaky with exhaustion. She could kiss the ground beneath her feet, and when Zuko follows shortly afterwards, he looks as if he agrees.

“You holding up okay?” she asks him when they’ve both gotten their bearings.

“Fine,” he tells her. “You?”

She nods. “Fine. Tired, though.”

“No wonder they only get supplies once a year,” Zuko huffs. “If they have to carry everything all the way up those ladders, I mean. Really puts it in perspective how far Kehale was willing to go to get that plant.”

Katara almost smiles, though her expression is more blankly far-off than truly pleased. “Kinda sweet, when you put it that way.”

“Let’s get going,” Kehale interrupts, hauling a panting Somboon up the last few rungs of the ladder without even stopping.

The two shrug helplessly at each other and follow.

* * *

Homes on Wakuine are built on stilts.

It’s a bit strange to Zuko, seeing architecture so similar to that of the southern Fire Nation so far from home. But the Ausa were Fire Nationals, once; the stilts and balconies and peaked, thatched roofs are as much a part of their culture as any remnant of the Sea People. Their homes consist of more palm thatching than wood, since this island obviously lacks the abundance of hardwood trees so ubiquitous in Sawadee, but they’re unmistakably Sawad in design. Stepping up to the threshold of Kehale’s home, Zuko can almost convince himself that he’s on Ember Island and not a half-deserted sea stack in the middle of nowhere.

“We don’t exactly get guests around here, so I hope you’re fine with sleeping on a bedroll,” Kehale tells Zuko and Katara as they follow him into the house. He slips off his shoes at the door, and they both follow his example and silently pad down the halls behind him. Somboon hung back to tell a group of friends he encountered about his ‘travails’ (he’s as ridiculous as Zuko was at that age and then some), so they’re an eerily quiet group now.

Katara speaks up, though. “We’re just grateful not to be sleeping outside,” she says, her voice a little too chipper. “I grew up in the Southern Water Tribe, so I’m used to this kind of thing. It’ll be great!”  
  


“Mm.” Kehale peels off towards what looks like a kitchen and sets down his pack, which, as far as Zuko knows, only contains his pouch of Lily-Wort. “Well, uh…make yourselves at home. I’ve got to go check on my wife.”

Neither of them asks if they’ll ever meet her. Kehale is really being remarkably hospitable for someone as grumpy as he appears to be, and neither Zuko nor Katara wants to risk losing that tenuous welcome – neither knows how they’ll survive if they’re thrown out. So they take seats on opposite ends of a carved wooden bench.

For the first time in over a week, Zuko is keenly aware that his entire body is coated in a thin layer of salt, and he wants to wash it off more than he can remember having wanted anything in a long, long time.

“Zuko?” Katara asks, and suddenly his unfortunate condition is the furthest thing from his mind.

“Yeah?”

  
She angles her body towards him so that her knees point to his. “I’m, um. I’m sorry.”

“For…?”

“How I’ve been treating you lately, I guess.” Katara shrugs weakly. “And what I said to you back on the island. Just…for everything.”

“I have as much to apologize for as you do, Katara,” Zuko admits, reaching out and letting her hand graze his. He’s a stubborn man, and often a prideful one, but he’s smart enough to know that if he’s going to be stranded here with Katara for a year, he’s going to make things much easier for himself if he gets this out of the way now. “I’m…I’m sorry too.”

“I really don’t want to believe that you mean that.” Nevertheless, Katara reaches for his hand, and she twines her fingers through his. “It feels like…I don’t know, giving up. Because I really _don’t_ want to let you – _or_ myself – off the hook after so long. But…”

“We’re stuck here.” It’s the same reason Zuko is willing to entertain the idea of admitting he was wrong. “Together.”

“We’re all we have left,” Katara says, and there’s something final in her words. “So…truce?”

He squeezes her hand. “Truce.”

And that is when Kehale shoves open the door to the room he’d disappeared into, his face deathly pale.

* * *

Katara is on her feet the moment she sees Kehale’s ashen face. She knows what this is probably about and, though she never exactly told him how skilled she was, Kehale knows that she’s a healer. And she doesn’t need to be told what he wants.

“Your wife?” Katara asks, and Kehale barely manages a weak nod.

  
“You…you’re a waterbender,” he stammers. “Please…”

“I’ll do it.” With a resolute nod, and one look back at Zuko, Katara pushes open the bedroom door.

“I guess she…she got worse while we were gone,” Kehale explains hurriedly, his voice breaking every couple of syllables in his panic. His wife, tucked under a light blanket, looks feverish, her face flushed and her expression pinched as she tosses and turns. A jerky movement of her elbow throws the blanket to the side, and Kehale rushes to set it back over her. “I don’t…I don’t know if the Lily-Wort is going to work.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” Katara rolls up with her sleeves. She wishes she had her waterskin, but it was lost in the shipwreck, and she looks up at Kehale expectantly. “I need some clean water.”

He leaves without another word and returns a moment later, carrying a wooden bucket that sloshes dangerously with every step. Water must be hard to come by on this island, Katara realizes, and his carelessness in letting water slosh out of this bucket speaks to the blind panic that drives him forward. “Here,” he tells her as he sets it down.

“How did she get sick? Do you know what’s wrong with her?” Katara asks, smoothing a tendril of cool water across the woman’s face to cool her. She was striking even in this state; her high, sharp cheekbones and thick black hair must’ve made her quite the stunner when she was well.

“It started about three months ago,” Kehale says as Katara works. “We don’t know what happened. She just…fainted one day, and she kept getting weaker after that. She couldn’t fight off everyday sicknesses that normally wouldn’t bother her, and…I guess she must’ve come down with something while I was gone, and she’s too weak to fight it, and…”

“I know what’s wrong with her,” Katara says gravely, cutting him off. She knows the moment she runs a current of water across her chest why Rochana is ill.

“Is it bad?”

“Heart problems,” Katara tells him. “Tricky, but I have experience with that.”

“Do you think you can…”

  
“I’ll do my best,” she assures him.

  
She’s lucky, Katara realizes, that she is _intimately_ acquainted with difficult-to-treat ailments of the heart. Where her heart beats too slowly, Katara knows exactly which valves and arteries to tweak, where to apply water to strengthen them. She spent weeks perfecting these techniques after the Agni Kai, and she takes pride in them; she’s confident that the man who’s sheltering them will not lose his wife tonight.

But nothing – _none_ of the things she tried on Zuko, things that had _worked_ – are changing anything. The woman still thrashes as if she’s trying to escape her own body, her skin is burning-hot, and her heartbeat grows ever more erratic until Katara can barely find it at all.

“Come on,” she mutters, moving the water in her hands over a critical artery to bathe it in fluid in the hopes that it’ll make it stronger, but it’s not _working._ Even bloodbending would do nothing now, though she’s considered it – she can’t make it flow to her heart the way it should. Her breathing begins to slow, and her thrashing abates. Katara squeezes her eyes shut, as if in doing so she’ll be able to deny culpability, but it’s no use – the woman’s weak heart has moments before it stops beating altogether and she knows it. She can’t restart a heart like this; she’s come close, in the catacombs beneath Ba Sing Se, but even then, she had help. Aang’s heart was so charged with the remnants of Azula’s lightning that it had been a matter of redirecting the current so that it beat again.

And it is with that thought that she realizes what she can do.

“Zu-“ she catches herself. “ _Lee!”_ she calls. “Get in here!”

Zuko shoves past a frantic Kehale in his rush to her side. “Yes?”

“I need your help,” she pants, already weary with the exertion of wrestling with the woman’s heart. “Need you to make…lightning, kind of? Electricity?”

“Kat-I mean, _Kanna_. What are you doing?”

“We need to get her heart going again,” she whispers, hoping Kehale won’t hear that.

“But…I can’t make lightning. You know that.”

“Zuko, she’s going to die.” With her voice low, Katara doesn’t see the need to use his alias. “I don’t care if you can’t make lightning, just….some sort of current?”

Zuko bites his lip in apprehension, but he nods. “I’ll see what I can do,” he says, pressing his hands to her chest and wincing. Katara can tell that he hates touching her this way, but he understands what’s at stake as well as she does. He closes his eyes, concentrating, and as Katara continues to try to keep her blood flowing, Zuko presses down and almost – _almost –_ smiles when sparks jump from his hands.

The woman gasps for air as she jolts beneath his hands and Katara is quick to take over, guiding the current he’s pushed into her bloodstream just so until her heartbeat evens out. With her heart beating normally, Katara can turn to the root cause of her brush with death, knitting together tissue, undoing blockages, repairing a broken heart the way she wishes she could repair her own. It’s no trouble, now that the hard part has passed, and soon the woman is breathing evenly, sleeping as peacefully as she probably hasn’t in months. When Katara pulls her hands away, she barks out an incredulous laugh and turns to Zuko, throwing her arms around him before he even knows what’s happening. Taken-aback and uncertain what else to do, he awkwardly pats her shoulder.

“Thank you,” she tells him, tucking her chin into the crook of his neck.

“Wait, that…worked?”

“That worked,” Katara laughs, “among other things.”

“Whoa,” he murmurs, and she can’t help but laugh once more.

“Fire is life,” she reminds him with a gentle jab to the ribs. It’s the kind of soft warmth she hasn’t felt with him in months, and she could cry with relief.

“Um.” Kehale’s voice cuts through her celebration. “She’s still burning up.”

He’s joined his wife at her bedside, and Katara moves back into place. “The fever’s not the problem. Her heart was just making it harder for her to fight off,” she explains. “Now that her heart is up and running again, she’ll recover in a couple of days.”

“You mean…” Kehale doesn’t look like he believes her. “Whatever made her sick…it’s just _gone?_ For good?”

  
“If I have any idea what I’m doing, then yes, for good,” Katara tells him. “She’ll be fine soon.”

“You…you…” Kehale’s eyes widen and before Katara can react, he’s crossing the room and pulling her into a crushing embrace. He hugs her so forcefully that he nearly pulls her off her feet and Zuko, off to the side, looks a little bit worried, but Katara knows not to be. “ _Thank_ you,” he says, over and over, and Katara nods stiffly, still a bit squashed. It feels as if every single built muscle in Kehale’s body is being used to squeeze her.

“It’s the least I could do,” Katara says, short of breath but determined to reply. “After everything you did for us.”

“I can’t thank you enough,” he says, ignoring her. “If…if I hadn’t found you…”

“But you did.” Finally getting an arm free, Katara pats Kehale’s back. “And you’re giving me way too much credit. It was Zu-I mean, _Lee_ who really did the heavy lifting.”

Zuko looks almost offended by that insinuation. “Was _not.”_

“Oh, don’t be such a child. It was you who restarted her heart, not me.”

  
Kehale promptly drops her and grabs Zuko into a bone-crushing hug of his own. Katara, still slightly dizzy, smirks. He sets him down when his wife begins to stir, though, and it is then that Katara takes Zuko’s arm and guides him out of the room.

  
This is no longer their moment to interrupt.

* * *

“I can’t believe I _healed_ someone.” Zuko can’t fight the awed smile off his face as they step out onto one of the breezeways that surround the house. “Crazy.”

Katara lays her hand atop his on the railing. “Not crazy,” she tells him. “But it's fitting.”

“Oh?”

“Think about it. These people are the result of a union between waterbenders and firebenders, right?” Katara looks up at him with a satisfied little smile. “And a little tag-team fire-water healing saved this one’s life.”

Zuko considers the idea, then nods apprehensively. “Huh. I guess that _is_ fitting.”

Katara laughs. “Isn’t it?” She knocks her shoulder into his. “I’m pretty proud of us.”

Zuko’s heart stutters and nearly stops in his chest at that, because there hasn’t been an _us_ in a long, long time. But when he finally gets his bearings, he replies, “yeah, me too.”

There will probably be more moments, later in their year together ( _a year,_ Zuko can’t think without horror), when this tenuous peace is disturbed. This probably won’t clear away the last of the tension between them. But it’s more of a start than either of them has been willing to make in a long time, and it’s a _good_ one.

“If I had to be stuck here with someone,” Katara admits, “I’m kinda glad it was you.”

He smiles. “So am I.”

* * *

In the end, Katara isn’t there when Kehale’s wife – they _still_ don’t know her name, she realizes – wakes. She’d wanted to be, because it’d be easier to keep tabs on her recovery that way, but it hadn’t panned out. Instead, it’s Kehale, who hasn’t left her bedside in the hours since she nearly died, who sees her eyes open.

  
“Rochana?” Katara can hear his groggy, sleep-thickened voice from the home’s central room, where she and Zuko lie on mats laid out parallel to each other on the floor. He’s fast asleep, too exhausted to keep his eyes open after a trip to a spring had given them the chance to wash the salt off of their skin, but she’s wide awake.

When Kehale doesn’t get a reply, he tries again. “Rochi?”

“K’hale?” an even groggier voice replies. “When’d you get back?”  
  


“Don’t worry about that,” he tells his wife, and Katara can see it all in her mind’s eye: Kehale taking his wife into his arms, waify thing that she is after months of illness, and his wife – Rochana, she know knows – tucking her head under his chin, too tired to realize what’s happened. She can’t see them, save for their shadows outlined against the thin rice paper of their door, but she feels as if she knows, anyways. “Do you feel better?”

“Much.” Rochana’s voice pauses, as if considering. “It’s…it’s like I was never even sick.”

  
“We found a waterbending healer,” Kehale tells her. “She did that.”

“She…fixed me?”

  
“She fixed you,” Kehale repeats, and Rochana lets out an incredulous shriek of laughter.

“I’m…I’m okay?” Katara imagines the rosy flush to her fevered cheeks. “I’m going to be okay?”

“You’re going to be okay.” In the shadow that the candle on their bedside casts on the ricepaper door of their bedroom, Katara can see Rochana move into view, throwing her arms around her husband’s neck. “ _We’re_ going to be okay.”

“Who is she?” Rochana asked. “How did she do it? How _could_ she do it?”

“You’ll meet her in the morning,” Kehale murmurs, pushing her shoulders back gently until she lies down. “But she said it might take a few days for your fever to go down, so you need to take it easy.”

Rochana sits up again. “But what about the plant?”

“Lie down, Rochi,” Kehale sighs.

“But _what about the plant?”_ Rochana is undeterred. "You crossed the ocean for that plant!"

“It’s here,” Kehale huffs. “Didn’t use it. The waterbender we found was a lot more effective.”

“Wait, you found her on the island with the Lily-Wort?”

“Shipwrecked. What are the odds?” Kehale stops himself. “But I can tell you about that later. Just lie down.”

“Kehale, I’m fine.”

“You’re still sick, Rochi,” he murmurs. Katara sees him lie back against the headboard and gesture for Rochana to join him; reluctantly, she moves into his waiting arms and rests her head against his chest. “You need to take care of yourself.”

“But that’s what I have you for,” she says sweetly, and if Katara knows anything, she cranes her neck to kiss him.

“This was the exception, not the rule,” Kehale replies after a moment.

It is then that Katara turns away. Something in her aches, and she cannot say why; maybe it is because she hasn’t felt warmth like that in months. Regardless of the cause, though, she aches, and she looks around as if something she sees will fill that gaping chasm in her chest. Almost reflexively, she glances over at Zuko, sleeping soundly with his head pillowed on his forearm.

_We did a good thing,_ she thinks. _We are the reason she’s alive and they’re happy right now._

That is as far as she allows her thoughts to wander – anything else would be dangerous.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Firebending healing is perhaps the only valid ATLA theory I have ever had.


	5. Itadakimasu

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know how I said that once I got over the angst hump, this was going to be _extremely_ pure and sweet? Well, we're officially over the hump. I hope the people I lured in with the angst don't hate me for this, but I love it, so nyeh. Have some worldbuilding. And some Rochana.

_itadakimasu /_ _頂_

_“I humbly receive” – often said before meals_

_****_

Katara isn’t asleep when Zuko awakens on their first morning in Wakuine. She hates being awoken early, but the sun’s only been up for an hour now and she isn’t there; her mat has been folded up neatly and left next to his. That in and of itself alerts him that something is wrong, and he gets up, still clutching his blanket around his shoulders against the stiff breeze off the ocean. She might be in the kitchen, he figures; he tries without luck to find her there. He thinks she might’ve gone out on the breezeway, unable to sleep – nothing there either.

  
He’s starting to worry, and she can’t possibly be anywhere in the house, so Zuko slips on a pair of house slippers woven from palm leaves that sit by the door – his own boots are soaked after he’d washed them to get the sand and saltwater out – and slides it open as quietly as he can. Kehale and his wife’s home (Zuko still hasn’t learned her name) sits at the north end of the island, about as far from the rest of the village as they can get, but a dirt path snaking across the surface of the sea stack takes him into town quickly. There’s not much of a town to speak of, merely a cluster of stilted polehouses surrounding a well and a few huts that store surplus crops, but it’s buzzing with activity this morning.

Zuko realizes why when he approaches the well, and his heart sinks.

“Unbelievable,” he hears a woman crow from inside the cluster of people surrounding the well. It’s not hard to pick her out – she’s not exactly being quiet, and she’s the tallest woman in the cluster by a few inches – but Zuko isn’t as sure what she’s referring to. He catches a sideways glimpse of her face, which seems…oddly familiar. Perhaps, though, that’s just because she’s surrounded by no less than six women of varying ages and heights whose faces look nearly identical to hers.

_All_ of them, and then some, are staring at Katara, who’s holding a bucket of water to her chest defensively with abject fear that he rarely sees in her eyes.

This, Zuko knows, has to be bad. Katara hasn’t once shown that kind of skittishness to any of the councilmen and dignitaries she’s debated in her tenure as ambassador, and he doesn’t know why these islanders scare her so much, but they must’ve done something awful to warrant it. He knows she’ll resent the intrusion, but he has to try anyway.

“Kanna?” he calls as he approaches the group. Relief floods Katara’s features when he turns. “What’s wrong?”

Immediately, every head swivels, and he almost smiles. He’s drawn the prying eyes of the townspeople away from her.

“Nothing,” Katara says tightly. “I was just…getting acquainted with the villagers!”

“Who are you?” the tall, loud woman crosses her arms. Katara takes that as her cue and joins Zuko, placing her palm flat against his arm. She brushes her hand across his forearm so nonchalantly that Zuko has to blink to make sure he isn’t seeing things. _Why would she…?_

“This,” she tells them with a smile that he knows is fake, “is my husband, Lee.”

_Oh, right. Our cover story._ As if there’s any doubt left as to where the two newcomers stand, Katara rises on her toes and kisses his scarred cheek with a sweet smile as forced as her last one.

“Careful, Lee,” one of Tall-and-Loud’s identical companions pipes up with a wicked smile. “Better hang onto your wife or we might steal her.”

“Um.” Zuko blinks again, swallowing hard. “Please don’t do that.”

Katara laughs – that one is definitely real. “Oh, Lee,” she sighs, patting his arm affectionately. “Always so awkward.”

“No, really,” Identical Woman Number Three says. “When we heard what your wife did for Rochana, we just about fell over in a dead faint!”

_Rochana._ That must be Kehale’s wife’s name. “Um. Yeah. She’s…good like that,” Zuko mutters, not meeting their eyes.

“Oh, don’t be modest.” Katara, far from skittish now that she has him to back her up, actually seems to be enjoying this charade. “It was Lee who restarted her heart, not me.”

A gasp ripples through the crowd, though it’s a bit too small to be called that. Immediately, Zuko is mobbed, and when he looks to Katara for help, he realizes that none is coming.

Identical Woman Number Four, this one much shorter than the others, flings herself into Zuko’s unprepared arms. “Thank you thank you thank you thank you _thank you!”_ she squeals as she hangs on tight, and Zuko doesn’t have the heart to peel her off. “We were all so sure my sister was gonna die, and she _didn’t!”_

_Oh. They’re her sisters._

“Um…glad to be of service,” Zuko mutters, finally letting go. He quickly rejoins Katara, taking her arm as a sort of defense. “But it wasn’t really me.”

“ _Nonsense,”_ Katara says through gritted teeth. “ _I couldn’t have done it without you.”_

_Oh._ Zuko looks to Katara with newfound dread. _She’s using me to deflect the attention so they don’t mob her._

Normally, this would irritate Zuko to no end. It’s entirely selfish and entirely unlike the Katara he knows, but he sees the panic past the pasted-on sparkle in her eyes and he can’t find it in himself to be mad. It’s understandable: here she is on a small island full of people who seem to think she’s some sort of curiosity for their consumption with no escape route and only one person she knows-

“Well, maybe you’re right,” Zuko concedes, looking down at her with a reassuing squeeze of her arm, and she’s so relieved that she nearly goes limp against him. He wraps his arm around her back to support her. “Shall we?”

“Thanks,” Katara says weakly, finally letting her exhaustion with the situation show. He offers his arm, and she links hers through it, carrying the water she’d drawn from the well – she must’ve come early to get it for Rochana and Kehale, he realizes, and he can’t help but smile – in the other.

It’s not as simple as deciding, though, and when the villagers realize what they’re doing, indignant cries ring out. “Wait, you’re not going to tell us how you did it?” one of the Identical Women cries.

“I…I need to go,” Katara says. “Please…”

The townspeople look like they’re going to reply when a new arrival cuts them off. “What is the meaning of all of this?” she demands, crossing her arms in front of her chest as she approaches the group.

_Rochana._ She still looks weak, her limbs too frail and her face too sunken for someone her age, but if the look of indignation on her face is any indication, she’s not particularly worried about either of those things. Zuko mouths _thank you_ in her direction, though he doubts he sees it.

“Rochi, be careful,” Kehale’s now-familiar voice cuts in as he follows her. She swats his hand away from the spot where it hovers and crosses her arms again, coming to a stop in front of the group.

  
“Rochana!” one of her sisters – the Identical Women are nearly identical to Rochana, too, Zuko now sees – cries as she runs to embrace her, though Rochana clearly doesn’t have the patience for greetings. “Are you feeling better?”

“Much,” she says flatly, patting her sister’s back perfunctorily and then letting go. “But I have to say that I expected more from you, Orarat.”

The shortest of the Identical Sisters pouts. “What did I do this time?”

Rochana’s eyes flash. “This woman saved my life, and _this_ is the thanks she gets?”

“We were thanking her!” Identical Sister Number Three cuts in. “ _Profusely!”_

“Oh, by mobbing her?” Rochana gestures to Katara, who’s clearly still a bit put-out. “Look at her! The poor woman looks like you’re going to throw her down that well!”

“We weren’t _doing_ anything!” Identical Sister Number Two comes to her sisters’ defense, though it doesn’t seem to convince Rochana, who’s still enraged. Kehale approaches from behind her, lightly rubbing her back in what’s probably supposed to be a calming gesture as he whispers something to her. She does calm, though not entirely, so it must’ve worked.

“Please just leave Kanna and Lee be, please,” Rochana sighs, taking Kehale’s offered arm and turning. “Kanna, Lee, feel free to come with us now if you want to.”

Katara nods, still clinging to Zuko’s arm, and follows. Immediately after they’re out of earshot, he nudges her side to get her attention, speaking when she looks up. “Hey, what happened back there?” he asks. “I mean, I know they were mobbing you, but…why did it scare you so much?”

“I don’t know,” Katara admits. “It shouldn’t have. I mean, La knows I’ve faced scarier things than a bunch of nosey townsfolk. But…”

“I’ve never seen you look so…helpless,” Zuko says, hoping against hope that she won’t hit him for it. She doesn’t, though.

“I guess I’m just overwhelmed,” Katara decides. “It’s been a rough week, and…this was the push I needed to go over the edge.”

“That would make sense,” Zuko replies. “First you get shipwrecked, then taken in by strangers, and then you have to restart someone’s heart…that would put you on edge.”

“Yeah.” Katara nods. “I still feel kind of pathetic, but it does make sense.”

“Hey, those women were vicious,” Zuko says, trying to keep his voice light. “I mean, they were coming after you like piranha-geese.”

Blessedly, Katara laughs. “Oh, absolutely. I was shocked.”

“Sorry,” Rochana calls over her shoulder. “My sisters are insatiable.”

  
“Wait, those were _all_ your sisters?” Katara’s eyes widen.

“Oh, no, just six of them.” Rochana’s eyes sparkle with mirth. “Just the ones that look like me. My mother was probably in there somewhere, too. But most of them were just neighbors.”

“That had to have been everyone who lives on this island,” Zuko mutters, and Rochana nods in agreement.

“Just about, from the looks of it.” Now she detaches herself from her husband’s arm to join Katara and Zuko. “I wish I could’ve stopped them.”

“Don’t worry about it. You’re still recovering,” Katara says. “How’s your fever?”

“Broke last night,” Rochana says brightly. “Kehale kept telling me to rest, but I wasn’t just going to throw you to the wolves.”

“Thanks,” Katara says with her first genuine smile of the day. “You really did get there just in time.”

“Oh, _I_ got there just in time? Says _you?”_

“I don’t know what you-“

Rochana’s mirthful smirk falls away. “If you had been a few hours later, I probably would’ve died,” she says, taking Katara’s hand. “I know this isn’t going to sound like thanks enough, but I owe you my life, and I…” Rochana pauses to breathe. “I can’t even express how grateful I am.”

“Hey, it was nothing,” Katara says, flushing. “And it wasn’t just me. Lee helped, too.”

  
“Kehale told me.” Now Rochana turns to Zuko. “Firebending healing? I’ve never heard of that before.”

“I hadn’t either.” Zuko shrugs. “But Kat-I mean, _Kanna_ told me what to do and…I guess it worked.”

“Thank you,” Rochana says again, this time turning away and falling into step beside them. “I don’t know what we would’ve done if I hadn’t made it.”

“I’m glad I was able to do something.” Katara glances over at Rochana, and then at Kehale. “But really, you should be thanking your husband. If he hadn’t gone out looking for that plant, he would never have found us.”

“Yeah,” Rochana says softly, bittersweet affection breaking out across her face. “I’m the only family he has left. He told me he’d do anything to let me live.”

“I believe it.” Katara looks like she’s lost in thought, even if she’s grounded in the moment. “He loves you something awful.”

“He does,” Rochana agrees. “It’s the funniest thing, really. We hated each other growing up.”

“You _didn’t.”_

“Sure did!” Rochana’s laugh gets Kehale’s attention, and he looks back at them, his face lit up with fondness and relief all at once. “Everyone on this island grows up together, so we’ve known each other all our lives. We didn’t get along at all as kids.”

“Oh?” Katara throws an amused glance at Zuko, then looks back to Rochana. “What changed?”

“His parents passed away,” Rochana says, her voice dropping so he won’t hear her. “We were thirteen. And…I don’t know, I realized how hard that must’ve been for him, and I didn’t have the heart to hate him anymore. We started to become friends, and…things just grew from there.”

“I can’t even imagine,” Katara says. “And on such a small island…”

“Exactly,” Rochana sighs. “His little sister couldn’t take it. As soon as she turned sixteen, she left for the mainland.”

“So it really was just you and him.”

Rochana nods. “He asked me to marry him the night she left.”

Katara’s face softens. “That’s so-“

“I turned him down.” Rochana shakes her head fondly. “We were only twenty-one, and he was obviously not in the best place, so I told him to wait a year and if he still wanted to marry me, he could.”

“Smart.” Zuko can’t help but notice the glint in Katara’s eyes when she hears that; he has a feeling these two are going to be fast friends. “And he did, clearly.”

“It wasn’t just a year,” Rochana says with a sheepish smile. “It ended up being three.”

“And he waited for you?”

“He did.”

Zuko cannot imagine being made to wait like that, and he glances over at Kehale with newfound appreciation.

“So now it’s just us,” Rochana continues. “Him and me and my eight siblings.”

“ _Eight?”_ Zuko can’t help but blurt out.

“I know it’s a lot.” Rochana shrugs. “We’re, like, half of the population of this island. But…it’s kind of nice.”

“Where are you in the order?” Katara asks, bending some water that’s threatening to slosh out of her bucket back in.

“Fifth,” she says. “It’s my brother Panit, then my sister Lawan, then Orarat – you met her – and then my other brother Chanchai, then me, then Arinya, then Karawek, then Achara, then Malee.”

“So…six sisters, two brothers?”

“Yeah. Panit’s thirty-four and Malee is fifteen, so it’s a pretty big age gap, too,” Rochana explains. “They’re…a little bit loud, except Lawan.” Rochana makes a show of shielding her face with her hand as she turns to her guests. “She’s my favorite.”

  
“I won’t tell,” Katara promises, then changes the subject. “Also, might you happen to know a kid named Somboon?”

Rochana rolls her eyes. “Unfortunately, yes.”

“He was with Kehale when he found us,” Katara tells her. “I was wondering what the connection was.”

“My nephew. Panit’s son,” Rochana says. “And a discredit to all Sawads.”

“Wow, that’s harsh.” Zuko glances over at Rochana. “What’d he do to deserve that?”

“Have you _met_ Somboon?”

  
“Fair enough.” Zuko shrugs. “So are there a lot of Sawads here?”

“No, we’re mostly Ausa. My family probably has the most Sawad heritage of the group, but we’re still pretty mixed,” Rochana tells them. “Somboon’s mother is Ausa, to give an example.” She pauses to shake her head. “He’s utterly convinced that one day, there’s going to be an Ausa kid who’s born with the ability to bend both fire and water. No one’s been able to convince him that that isn’t a thing.”

“That would be something,” Katara chuckles.

Rochana raises her eyebrows. “If it were possible, you two would have as good a chance of ending up with a double-bending kid as anyone.”

Zuko blushes profusely. “Oh, we’re not…um…” he scrambles for words that won’t blow their cover. “Um, I-“

“I can’t have kids,” Katara blurts out, looking frantically over at Zuko.

Regret flashes across Rochana’s face. “Oh. I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right. We’ve made our peace with it.” Even though she’s lying, Katara’s smile looks a little bit forced.

“Well.” Rochana is as eager to change the subject as they are. “I have to warn you, there’s a decent chance my parents are going to insist you come to dinner.”

“Sounds great!” Katara says brightly, but the look on her face when she turns to Zuko tells him everything he needs to know.

* * *

Even Rochana, indomitable woman that she apparently is, can’t keep her sisters from swarming their dinner guests for long.

“How’d you meet?” Orarat, distinguishable by her short stature, asks.

“When did you fall in love?” Arinya, whose nose is a little bit flatter than her sisters’, goes next.

“How did you get shipwrecked?” Lawan, clearly haggard as she bounces a baby against her shoulder, asks. Katara could cry with relief at being asked a question that doesn’t concern her “marriage,” but she doesn’t get to answer it before another sister has her turn.

“Tell us about your wedding!” Malee, the only one of the sisters who actually looks her age, insists.

“No, tell us about how you healed Rochi!” Achara, who’s only a year older than her sister but looks closer to twenty-one than sixteen, asks. Arinya elbows her under the table, though it’s not as inconspicuous as anyone chooses to pretend it is.

  
“Rochi specifically told us not to ask that,” Ariyna snaps, trying and failing to whisper.

“Can you please just let them eat?” Panit cuts in, and Katara’s shoulders sag with relief. He nods in approval when she digs into the pork they’d prepared for the occasion – seeing that their livestock supply is so finite, with few opportunities to replace any animals they eat, Rochana explained that it’s an honor to be served meat – and she’s grateful, once she begins eating, for the excuse not to talk. And maybe, she thinks as she cuts another slice of the salty, smoky, succulent pork, she’s grateful for a distraction from the warmth in this room, the way Rochana’s family interacts with such clear affection even in their annoyance.

(Maybe warmth reminds her of the chill that’s been sinking deeper into her bones since she arrived in the Fire Nation.

Maybe it reminds her that happiness is fragile.

Maybe, for once, she can warm herself enough to thaw it.)


	6. Wabi-Sabi

_wabi-sabi / 侘寂_

_Accepting the beauty of imperfection and impermanence_

_******_

Three nights into their stay on Wakuine, Zuko has learned that he likes the open breezeways of the island’s homes. They remind him of the architecture at Ember Island, and of home, and they catch the wind off the ocean just so. The day’s heat gently recedes as the winds, blunted by the house’s geometry, lightly buffet the balconies. The dried palm raffia of the walls rustles gently behind him as he leans against the railings, and watching the sunsets from this breezeway every night gets as close to peace as Zuko has had in a long time. It doesn’t last.

“So.” Zuko turns when he hears Kehale approach, taking a spot next to him on the railing. “You like it out here?”

  
Zuko nods, glancing at his host out of the corner of his eye. “It’s nice.”

“Glad to hear it, since you’re kind of…stuck here.” Kehale scratches the back of his neck. “How are you and Kanna holding up?”

He’s still getting used to hearing Katara called that, so he takes a moment to respond. “Oh. Um…we’re okay.” Zuko shrugs. “It isn’t ideal, but we really appreciate how helpful everyone has been.”

“It’s the least we can do.” He smiles to himself. “Rochana’s kind of the beating heart of this place. Anyone who helps her is automatically our favorite person for at least a little while.”

“I can tell.” Zuko relishes the ability to tell the truth without consequence – Rochana reminds him of Katara in a lot of ways, both in her vivacity and in the way she holds this island and its people in the palm of her hand the way Katara did their little group during the war. She’s vibrant, outgoing, and beautiful, and if she weren’t married, Zuko suspects he might be just the least bit infatuated with her. “We really don’t feel like you owe us anything, though. I mean…we just did what any decent person would’ve.”

“But almost no decent person _could’ve,”_ Kehale says. “So…we’re glad you’re here, even if you aren’t.”

“I’m still not thrilled about missing the…our honeymoon, but it could be worse.” Zuko shrugs. “At least this place is inhabited, and…the people aren’t trying to kill us or anything.”

Kehale raises his eyebrows. “Is that something you would normally be worried about?”

“Yeah. The Fire Nation doesn’t mess around.” He shifts his weight from his right arm to his left. “It’s…kind of weird, being somewhere where the people actually _like_ each other.”

“We don’t, always. I mean, look at Somboon.” Kehale glances over at Zuko. “But when you’re living somewhere like this, you have to take care of each other. If we didn’t, we’d all be dead.”

“Yeah. That’s kind of new to me.”

“I guess…none of us have ever known anything else.” Kehale shrugs. “It’s just how we do things. Everyone knows everyone, and if someone has a need, somebody else meets it. Like with Rochana.” Kehale inhales deeply; this obviously isn’t his favorite topic. “When she was sick, we had half of the village bringing food or…weird herbal remedies they came up with, or offering to look after her so I could get some rest. And you saw how they responded when you arrived.”

“Yeah, I did.” Zuko isn’t sure how to express just how _foreign_ this is, the feeling of being welcomed and helped and appreciated by total strangers who have no reason to care for him. He’s used to being waited upon – his title ensures that much – but never really _served._ No one, save perhaps his uncle (or maybe, _maybe_ Katara) does things on his behalf purely out of benevolence, the way that these people do. And it’s strange, when his whole life has been a struggle for survival in a world that is far too quick to pick off the weak.

It is utterly bizarre to him, the idea that people might treat others this way because they want to. He can’t understand why the entire village is jockeying for the chance to host two shipwrecked strangers for the night, parading food in front of them when there’s little to spare on this rocky outcrop. “We really appreciate it.”

“I’m glad.” Kehale nods, evidently pleased. “Even though Rochana’s family doesn’t understand the meaning of the words ‘back off’?”

Zuko, to his own surprise, laughs at that. “I’m kind of used to my privacy being invaded. I don’t mind.”

“Really? Because you looked _very_ uncomfortable at dinner last night.”

“Well…maybe not in that specific way,” Zuko admits, his face growing hot. “But it’s okay. I’m not upset or anything.”

“Rochi’s sisters are the nosiest people I’ve ever met. You get used to it.” Kehale shakes his head fondly. “I can’t even tell you how obnoxious they were when they found out she had feelings for me. We were _seventeen_ and they were asking me when the wedding was every ten seconds.”

Zuko winces. “That…doesn’t sound pleasant.”

“It’s the flipside of the whole tight-knit community thing. No privacy to speak of.”

“Yeah, I…could tell.”

“Don’t encourage them. They’ll probably forget to keep asking you when you’re having kids in a few days.”

“Um…they haven’t asked us that.”

“Oh, they will,” Kehale chuckles.

Zuko flounders, trying to come up with something, _anything_ to say to that, then remembers the cover story Katara had used with Rochana. He can’t lie to save his life; the least he can do is make sure their stories match. “Actually, Katara can’t have children.”

Kehale glances down at the railing, not wanting to meet Zuko’s eyes, and puts his hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t-“

“No, it’s fine. We didn’t want them anyway,” he lies, hoping against hope that his face isn’t red enough to give him away.

  
“Well…I can try to make sure they don’t ask,” Kehale offers.

“Thanks.”

They stand in silence for a moment, staring out over the horizon, until Kehale speaks again. “So…newlyweds, right?”

Zuko nods. “Um, yeah. We…um…we got married last month.” He coughs into his hand, trying to clear the telltale shakiness from his voice.

“I’m sorry that this is where you ended up spending your honeymoon,” Kehale sighs. “No privacy and no way out-“

Zuko’s cheeks are almost certainly beet-red by now; he knows what Kehale is implying and he’s not sure if he appreciates it very little or very much. “No, it’s okay. What can we do, right?”

“Still not very romantic.”

“Um. It’s…it’s fine.”

Kehale, wisely, decides to change the subject. “So how did you meet her?”

_Careful, Zuko. Don’t overreach here._ “Uh…during the war.” That, at least, is true. He knows that if he makes something up, he won’t be able to keep it up; the best thing to do is to minimize the number of lies he’ll have to keep telling.

“During the war?” Kehale raises his eyebrows. “Wouldn’t you have been on opposite sides?”

“I, um…I defected,” Zuko replies. Another truth means another lie he doesn’t have to keep up for the next year; later, he’ll probably have to tell Katara what he’s saying so they won’t contradict each other, but it’s easier to be truthful.

“So…how did you get to know each other?”

“Oh, you know…doing…war stuff.” He clears his throat. “As one does.”

“You must’ve been young.”

“Yeah, we were,” he says softly. That might be the truest thing he’s said since he arrived here. “Too young.”

“So…did you fall for her during the war, or after?”

“During.” Zuko’s stomach turns with that, and he doesn’t know why. There’s no actual reason for his choice – “after” might’ve made more sense – but he feels, nevertheless, like it was the right one.

“When did you know?” Kehale asks, and Zuko wonders why exactly he thinks he’s any different than Rochana’s sisters. He brushes the thought aside, though, because he has to save space in his brain for the thing that really matters right now.

_Think, Zuko. If you had fallen in love with Katara, when would it have happened?_

“It was…at the end of the war,” he says, his face flushing crimson. It feels _weird,_ claiming to be in love with her. “I was wounded, and she saved my life.”

He’s surprised, since he’s already established that telling as much truth as he can manage is a good idea, to find himself omitting perhaps the most crucial detail of that story.

Kehale smirks. “I’m sensing a trend there.”

“Yeah.” In spite of himself and everything else, Zuko smiles. “She’s amazing like that.”

“You’re lucky to have her,” Kehale tells him. “Marriage gets hard, but…please don’t forget that.”

Zuko nods, swallowing a lump in his throat and wondering where it came from. “Of course.”

“I’ve had it kind of tough,” Kehale continues. Apparently he wasn’t done. “But…Rochi makes that all worth it.”

Zuko cannot imagine ever feeling that way – that winning one person’s love is tantamount to the erasure of decades of suffering – but nevertheless, something like longing tugs at his heart, seeing the look of open adoration on Kehale’s face. “That’s…that’s good.”

“She’s my everything, Lee.” Kehale’s staring off into the distance now, almost entranced. “I’d try to explain it, but I don’t even know if I can.”

_He better not be expecting us to be that way,_ Zuko thinks. If he does, their charade is doomed – no amount of faked affection could convince anyone that he and Katara share a love like that. Briefly, he considers telling Kehale the truth, but the notion is swiftly discarded. He doesn’t know how they’d react to the knowledge of their guests’ real identities, and he doesn’t want to push his luck.

So, drawing on a newfound supply of prudence for which he mentally pats himself on the back, he says nothing at all.

* * *

“They’re probably not going to believe we’re married for long.”

Rochana and Kehale have been asleep for an hour now, so it seems to Katara that this is a good a time as any to talk about things she and Zuko can’t risk their hosts overhearing. They’re out behind the house, lying out in the tall, wild grass, on the blanket from Zuko’s bedroll, and even though she can’t see his face, Katara can tell he’s working himself into a panic. She sets her palm against his forearm, as she’s found herself doing often lately.

“Why do you say that?” she asks, though she already knows.

“ _Katara.”_

“Did somebody say something about it?” she tries again.

“Yeah. Kehale.” He sighs. “He asked a few questions that I couldn’t really avoid answering.”

“Okay, so tell me what you said.” Katara’s been through far too much lately to be ruffled by something so small; the well incident seems to have gotten that pent-up anxiety out of her system. So she is calm and collected and everything her “husband” is not.

“Um. That we can’t have kids, like you said.”

“Okay, good, that lines up.” Katara winces, though. “I still feel bad about that.”

“But…why?”

“I knew women who actually couldn’t have kids back at home,” she sighs. “And…it was _hard_ on them. I hate pretending that I’m in that position when I’m not.”

“You didn’t even really know what you were saying, Katara.”

“No, but it still doesn’t sit well with me.” Katara plays with the tassels on the edges of the blanket, and a shiver wracks her shoulders. “None of this does, really.”

“Lying, you mean?”

Katara nods. “I hate it. But what are we going to do?”

  
“Not much we _can_ do. Anyways.” Zuko glances over at her, whatever he was supposed to say evidently forgotten. “You cold?”

“No, I’m okay.”

“Katara, you’re shivering,” he points out, lifting his arm to invite her to come closer. “You sure?”

Reluctantly, and without a word, Katara crawls under his arm and rests her head against his shoulder. _For warmth,_ she tells herself.

“Better?” he asks after she’s settled in, and she nods against his chest. “Good.”

“Thanks.” Katara smiles wanly, though she knows he can’t see it. “This’ll look good if anyone comes by.”

Neither wants to acknowledge how unlikely that is. It’s an easier explanation of their motives than a desire for the grounding warmth of human touch between friends who haven’t shown each other affection in months.

“Anyways,” Zuko continues, absentmindedly rubbing circles at the small of her back with his warm, open palm. “He asked how we met. I told him I was a defector during the war and that’s…um…how.”

“So…you told him the truth?” Katara can’t help but let out a watery chuckle.

“You’re the one who said you didn’t want to lie!” Zuko protests a little too loudly, and Katara, laughing, claps her hand over his mouth. He squawks indignantly behind her hand, and she tries not to blush when she pulls her hand away and her fingers brush his lips.

“Zuko! Keep your voice down!” she chastises, laughing.

“Sorry, forgot about that.” He pokes her shoulder teasingly. “But I’m not sure why you’re complaining.”

“Oh, I’m not. Good job.” Katara’s cheek nuzzles his tunic as she adjusts her position. “I just thought it was funny.”

“He also asked when I knew that, I, um.” He pauses to breathe. “Um. When I-“

“Fell for me?” Katara prompts. _He can’t even say it._ She doesn’t know how she feels about that.

  
“Yeah.” Zuko nods and she feels his chin brush the top of her head. “I said it was after the Agni Kai.”

“You told him about the Agni Kai?”

“As vaguely as I possibly could,” Zuko reassures her. “I just said that you saved my life when I was wounded.”

Katara’s voice is hollow when it next speaks. “You didn’t tell him why I had to heal you in the first place.”

“No, that would’ve given away too much. Why?”

“Oh, nothing.” Katara wants to pull away, but she can’t bring herself to move when she’s warm here, tucked under his arm. “I just…”

“Talk to me, Katara.” He resumes rubbing her back and she shivers at the soft heat of his hands. “We already tried shutting down and it didn’t help. Just tell me what’s wrong.”

“You’re one to talk.”

“Katara…”

“It’s just…” Katara sighs. “If you’re trying to convince them that you love me, why would you leave out the part where you almost died protecting me?”

“I…don’t know.” Katara feels Zuko’s chest rise under her cheek as he sighs. “I guess…it felt too personal.”

“I get that.” Katara finds herself tracing the outline of his forearm without even thinking about it. “But…that’s the best case for being in love with someone that I can imagine. That’s all.”

“What is?”

“Being willing to die for them.” Katara squeezes her eyes shut. “I should know. _I_ was convinced you were in love with me for a while after that.”

“You… _were?”_

Katara nods. “Yeah. I couldn’t think of any other reason that you would’ve done that.”

It’s been two years and some-odd months since the Agni Kai, but they’ve never talked about it. It’s almost cathartic to let this out; for a fleeting moment, Katara wonders how different things would’ve been if she’d asked him this months ago.

“You were worth it.” Zuko reaches for her hand and twines her fingers through hers. “Whether I was in love with you or not, you were worth it.”

“I wasn’t,” Katara murmurs. “I wasn’t at all.”

“I think I’m the one who gets to make that call, Katara.” Zuko squeezes her hand. “And I say you were.”

“I think that’s part of why I avoided you for so long,” Katara admits. “I felt so guilty.”

“You didn’t need to.” He presses their joined hands to his chest, and she wonders whether it’s intentional that they sit almost exactly in the center of his scar. “I chose that. You couldn’t have stopped me if you tried.”

“I like to think I could have, but I probably couldn’t.” Katara shakes her head. “You’ve always been so stubborn.”

“Exactly,” he murmurs. “So...don’t beat yourself up.” He squeezes her hand again. “But don’t run. Please don’t run again.”

“I’m not going to, Zuko.” Katara shifts so her head rests over his heart, and she lets its steady rhythm ground her. “I shouldn’t have before and I won’t now.”

“I’m glad.” He frees his hand from hers and uses it to brush her hair out of her face, even though she’s not facing him. “I can’t do that again.”

“I can’t, either.”

Perhaps this is what they’ve both been edging towards all these months: whether they’re willing to admit it or not, Zuko and Katara will always need each other. In some way, part of her won’t be right without him, and he won’t be right without her. And she’s never been more relieved that she was able to save him. Though she does not love him, not that way, but she doesn’t know what she’d do in a world where there was no Zuko.

“We’re idiots, aren’t we?” Zuko asks, and Katara can’t help but laugh.

“Oh, definitely,” she chuckles. “Communication…what even _is_ that?”

“Never even heard of it. Haven’t you heard? Guilt complexes are the new thing,” Zuko tries to joke, and though he cringes at his own delivery, Katara laughs, and he thinks he’s never been happier to hear anything in his entire stupid existence.

“I missed you,” she sighs happily, and she leans into his shoulder again with the simple warmth of plain, honest affection. They sit in silence for a moment after that, watching the sky. It’s beautiful out here with no light to blot out the stars, and as she gazes up into the clear night sky, Katara feels entirely lost in an incomprehensibly huge world of which she is only one part. It’s _him –_ his grounding warmth, his gentle touch – that keeps her feet solidly planted on the ground.

“Zuko?” she asks after a moment, once she’s firmly back on earth.

“Yeah?”

“Were you?”

He lifts his head so he can look at her. “Was I what?”

“In love with me?” 

He pauses to consider the question. “I don’t know,” he finally answers. “I…just don’t know.”

She nods. She doesn’t need to ask anything more to know that this is as truthful as he’s been in months.


	7. Otsukaresama

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now that we've got our worldbuilding and characters established, it's time to unleash the Zutara softness. And my, will it be unleashed...
> 
> Little time skip here: this takes place three months after the events of the last chapter.

_Otsukaresama /_ _お疲れ様_

_“You must be tired” – an expression of gratitude for someone’s hard work_

_**_

Zuko and Katara learn within three months of their arrival on Wakuine that when it comes to chores, everyone – _everyone –_ pitches in.

This includes, apparently, the first guests this island has received in decades. Rochana is quick to put them to work, smugly taking advantage of Katara’s skill in the kitchen – it’s obvious that Katara doesn’t mind, though – and sending them out for the water she would normally have to fetch herself. Nothing she asks is too strenuous, only mildly annoying, and it’s clear that this is the only rent that Rochana and Kehale will ever ask them to pay. Their hospitality, after a while, is not entirely unconditional, but their company is. Menial tasks seem a small price to pay for a warm, open home and the conversation that their hosts are all too happy to provide.

(Privately, Zuko can’t help but observe that the sight of Katara humming to herself as she grinds taro for the week’s poi is worth a thousand sloshing buckets of water hauled back from the well.)

(Secretly, Katara finds her eyes following him as they walk back with their water, at the way the muscles of his shoulders flex through his thin tunic as he carries the heavy containers back to the house.)

Chores on Wakuine, though, aren’t entirely menial. Some tasks take the entire village’s assistance – Rochana’s described the taro harvest in detail – and when it comes time for those jobs to be done, even guests aren’t spared. So when Katara awakes to find Rochana and Kehale gone and Zuko standing in the doorway, utterly nonplussed, with a strange basket strapped to his back, she’s not even remotely surprised.

  
“Fishing day. I forgot,” she says, foregoing the usual morning greeting. She’s too tired to bother with pleasantries and she needs to get some food in her before they start what will no doubt be an exhausting day. “Have they told you about this?”

“Fishing day?” Zuko narrows his eyes. “What does that have to do with this weird basket thing?”

“The cliffs, genius.” Even half-asleep, Katara can’t help but laugh at his oversight as she grabs a banana out of the bowl that sits on the table. “How else are they going to get their fish catch up to the village?”

  
“You mean…we have to climb the ladders with these things full of fish?”

“Looks like it.” Katara shrugs into a woven basket of her own; it has sturdy barkcloth straps that wrap around her shoulders to secure the basket to her back. She smirks mischievously as she straightens again and turns to look at him. “Three solo trips to the well says I get more basketsful up the cliff than you do.”

Zuko can’t help but grin at the challenge. “A week’s worth of meals says that I carry more than you,” he offers.

“You’re on, Fire Lord,” she says, throwing a smirk over her shoulder as she rushes out the door to join the rest of the villagers. Zuko stands in place for a moment, utterly dazed, before he remembers that he’s supposed to be moving, too, and jogs to join her. Seeing him coming, she picks up her pace, her sandaled feet kicking up dust along the path as she runs. Her laugh floats out onto the breeze and carries right back to Zuko, and, still a little dazed, he runs after her.

“You’re going to have to be a little faster than that, _Lee!”_ she crows over her shoulder, almost tripping over the fabric of the barkcloth skirt she’s been wearing since they arrived ( _everything_ here is made of barkcloth, it seems) in her haste. They are in sight of the village now, and he can hear the gathering crowd tittering as they approach. Not to be outdone, Zuko picks up his pace, and he overtakes her just as they arrive at the storage hut where everyone has congregated. She’s laughing, flushed with triumph, and suddenly he feels more stupid and more impulsive than he ever has in a life that’s really been more of a series of stupid, impulsive plans.

He’s not sure whether he’s acting or not when he grabs her hands, halting her advance, and pulls her to his chest as she squeals indignantly and strains to escape. His grip is gentle, so that Katara could escape easily if she truly wanted to, but he knows she doesn’t when she stops resisting after a moment and lets him press her into him, his hands at either side of her waist. His nose is almost buried in her hair now; it smells of the sea breeze and the grass where they lie most nights, and he can’t help but breathe in deeply. It feels unreal, having her this close after so many months of distance. He's not sure what did it - whether it was the marriage ruse or the simplicity of their life on Wakuine or the simple fact that they are the only people they have here - but he's grateful for it. 

“Don’t underestimate me, Ambassador,” he whispers against her hair, and something warm and unfamiliar blooms in his chest at the way she shivers.

  
Not to be outdone, she turns, poking her finger into his chest. Their faces are only inches apart now, and after a moment of deliberation that’s written all over her face, she grabs the collar of his shirt to pull him in. “I didn’t,” she whispers back, her tone entirely at odds with her apprehensive expression. “I let you have that one.”

He knows that the villagers must be staring now, but they’ve done a pitiful job of playing at newlyweds so far. If anything, this is a credit to them. “Sure you did,” he says.

  
It is at that precise moment that Zuko realizes that he is almost overwhelmed with the desire to bridge the two-inch gap between their lips, crowd or no crowd, and kiss her.

Katara still looks unsure, though, so he pulls back, leaving only a hand at her elbow to let her know that he’s still here. “Let’s get to work,” he says, hoping that the edge to his voice has dulled by now. Katara nods weakly.

“Yeah.” She bites her lip, but she doesn’t pull her arm away. “We should.”

He’s a little embarrassed, approaching the villagers with his hand still resting in the crook of Katara’s elbow. But if anything, they look pleased with this development; the most of an acknowledgement of that exchange that they get from anyone are a handful of knowing looks. Her apprehension has faded, and Katara’s as cheerful as he’s seen her since they arrived. Then again, she’s been happier since they arrived than she had been in her entire six months in the Fire Nation; he thinks she must miss the feeling of community she’d never been without until the war’s end. In the Southern Water Tribe, with their group of friends during the war, Katara was always a _part_ of something; she thrives in community. Rip that away from her, as the Fire Nation did, and she wilts like a flower without water.

He’s almost grateful for their current predicament, then. She has what she needs once more; she’s cheerful, happy, full of energy and drive, and whatever had closed during her ambassadorship has all but opened again.

Maybe that’s why what he’s begun to feel for her is so much stronger than what he felt for her before. He can’t recall finding this much _joy_ in another person in his life. Sure, he’d felt the stirrings of _something_ for her when she’d forgiven him, and more than stirrings when he’d realized that his sister was aiming for her. He felt _something_ when she stayed by his side for the length of his recovery, and felt it again when she’d arrived for her appointment ceremony eight months earlier. But he’d never known what it was, and it had never felt half as unavoidable as it does now.

Zuko is no longer eighteen and clueless, though, and he can’t hide behind uncertain feelings that come and go anymore. He suspects he’s known since Katara mentioned it their first week in Wakuine, and those suspicions have only grown stronger as she’s opened up to the world again in a kinder, _better_ place than the one she left behind. Katara had asked if he’d been in love with her; his answer then may have been uncertain but now he knows without hesitation what he’d say if she asked him again.

_Of course I am._

Because it is the simplest distillation of an unavoidable truth: Zuko is entirely, inevitably in love with Katara.

“Zuko?” her voice snaps him out of his glassy-eyed distraction. “Did you hear anything they just said?”

“Huh?”

He looks down at her and feels the urge to bolt. He doesn’t know how to approach her in the context of this entirely new and entirely earth-shattering information. There are a thousand things on his mind now that are more pressing than fishing. But he’d rather not lose to the woman he’s only now realizing might be the love of his life, so he forces himself to listen as she explains the procedure for loading the baskets and the order in which carriers will climb the ladders.

  
(It’s only when she finishes that he realizes that there is no one else around; flustered, he wonders how long he stood there, but he chases the thought from his mind.)

“Are you all right?” Katara’s apparently noticed, too. “You are _really_ out of it.”

  
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?” his tone pitches oddly and he knows from the way she squints that Katara notices it.

“You look like you’ve seen a spirit, for one.” Katara pokes his bicep. “Wanna tell me what’s going on in that head of yours before you get so distracted that you fall off the cliffs?”

_You,_ he wants to blurt out, but he doesn’t. “Um, just. Thinking.” He glances over at her nervously, knowing before he does that she isn’t going to buy it. “I’ll be okay.”

“Well, I hope so.” She stands on the balls of her feet and kisses his cheek. “Wouldn’t want my _husband_ to be scaling cliffs if I didn’t know that he’d be able to make it up in one piece.”

“Don’t call me that,” he mutters. It takes everything he has not to press his hand to the spot where she’d kissed him. “Not when there’s no one around.”

_This isn’t a charade to me. Please don’t tease me like that._

“Oh. Right. Sorry.” Katara looks down guiltily. “Just…got a little carried away.”

The silence of their walk to the cliffs is broken by the sounds of chatter from the edge of the cliffs. Even those who are too old, too young, or otherwise unable to scale the cliffs have turned up to watch. And a throng of auxiliary workers wait for the baskets to be delivered: a few of the children ferry the baskets of fish to the huts where they’ll be cleaned, cut, and dried. Everyone’s in high spirits, and by the time Katara and Zuko begin to climb (he behind her, _always_ ), there are already people bringing baskets of fish back up from the beach.

When they reach the sand, Katara throws Zuko a look that can only mean one thing before she races to the nearest boat and scrambles to fill her basket with fish. And, forgetting to be stiff and awkward in the face of a challenge, Zuko does the same, scrambling for a ladder with no one near the bottom so he can climb unencumbered. He doesn’t climb with the deftness of the islanders, who have been making these trips their entire lives, but he’s able to keep a decent pace and realizes, with a hint of displeasure, that he owes that to the constant trips to the well he’s had to make. Carrying water has done wonders for his upper-body strength. All he has to think about before he reaches the marker signaling that he’s made it two hundred feet up (apparently those were added shortly after the ladders went up to “motivate lazy climbers”) are his pace and the need not to look down.

He _does,_ though, because he needs to see if Katara is beating him. He cackles to himself when he sees that she isn’t, but apparently he’s not as quiet as he thinks he is, because she lets out an indignant huff that he can hear from the next ladder over and climbs furiously, determined not to let him get even one basket in ahead of her.

(He has no idea how this is going to end in anything other than a tie, and he wonders why he hadn’t proposed sharing the chores in question in that case. Any chance he has now to be close to her is one he greedily accepts; he imagines their hands brushing as he passes her a taro root-

_Zuko. Climbing a cliff. Focus.)_

She beats him up the ladder by three rungs.  
  


Those are the only baskets they get to carry, with several dozen people assisting, and when all is said and done Katara leans in, scrunching her nose at the fishy scent of his tunic, and whispers, “I win.”

“You win,” he concedes.

* * *

Fishing days aren’t only events because of the ordeal that is cliff-scaling. That, though dramatic, is only one part of the process: the fish are caught, first, and then brought up; they have to be cleaned and preserved after that, and the choicest ones are cooked. The village eats well when the catch comes in, since it would be wasteful not to use the best fish while they’re still fresh, and by nightfall, the village center is lit with a suspiciously fish-scented bonfire. (Katara has a feeling the smell has something to do with the fish bones she’s seen people throwing in, too lazy to discard them elsewhere.) Everyone gathers around, stomachs full of fresh fish, to banter and gossip and tell stories.

It reminds Katara so much of her village’s tigerseal hunts when she was a little girl that her eyes sting, and not from the way the wind is blowing smoke in her face. 

Zuko seems to notice, sitting beside her with his arm slung around her shoulders. He’s gotten used to these casual touches as they’ve learned to play the part of smitten newlyweds, and they’re rarely apart anymore; she can’t say she minds. “Hey, are you okay?” he asks, his voice soft in the din of the evening.

“Fine,” she says, nodding weakly. For some reason, she can’t bear to tell him that she’s homesick. “Just, um…sore.”

  
It’s not a lie, really, even though it’s not why she looks so sad. She’d had to make no less than eight trips to the well for water to clean the fish throughout the afternoon, and though she’s used to carrying water now, she’s never done it so many times in one day. Added to the strain of climbing the ladder, which took little time but great effort, her arms are wrecked.

“Where?” Zuko angles his face so he can look at her. “I think I could help.”

“That would be great,” she admits. “Mostly my arms and shoulders.”

“Got it.” Zuko shifts so he sits behind her and rests both of his hands against her shoulders, and she sighs with relief as he heats his hands and digs their heels into her tense shoulders.

“Mmph. Right there,” she murmurs, leaning against his palms so he’ll know which knot to work on. “ _Ow._ Yeah, that’s the spot.”

“Tell me if it’s too much, okay?” he requests, and she nods as he digs his hands in again. The heat of his hands is impossibly soothing against her sore muscles.

“Firebenders,” she teases, though she’s not sure if she wants him to hear her or not. “Irritating, but useful.”

“That offends me.” He playfully jabs his finger into her shoulder in retaliation.

“You sore, too?” she asks as he continues to work her shoulders. “It won’t be warm, but…I can try to help you.”

His hands go slack at that, curling limply around her shoulders. “Um,” he sputters, obviously flustered. “Uh, yeah, that would be great.”

She moves a few inches away from him before she stands, then crouches behind him. She sets her hands on his shoulders before she asks, “okay, where does it hurt?”

“Um, my…my neck, mostly,” he says, sounding a little sheepish. Katara raises her eyebrows.

“Your _neck?”_ she asks, incredulous. “How on earth did you end up getting your _neck_ sore doing this?”

“Uh…when I was going to the well for cleaning water, one of the kids told me that it would be easier to carry the water jug on my head,” Zuko admits. “I’d only ever used the buckets, so I assumed he was right, and…I might’ve carried four jugs of water from the well to the prep tent on my head.”

“Zu-“ Katara catches herself. “ _Lee!_ Tell me you’re not serious.”

“Sadly, I am,” he sighs. “So…my neck hurts.”

“You have got to stop falling for things like that,” Katara clucks, her hands settling at the base of his neck. “Okay. Tell me if it hurts.”

He winces when she digs her fingers into a particularly tense muscle, and she pulls back. _I should just use waterbending for this,_ she thinks; she’d considered using it on herself, but she’d decided that Zuko’s warmth would be more soothing than the cool water. For Zuko, it makes a great deal more sense for her to simply heal him, but…

She doesn’t _want_ to, for whatever reason.

“Too much?” she asks, and he shakes his head. So she keeps going, occasionally using some of the water from her makeshift barkcloth waterskin to supplement her hands, and when Zuko turns to her after she’s finished working out the tension in his neck, he’s flushed and smiling and relieved.

  
“Thank you,” Zuko says, his voice so low that she can barely hear it. They sit across from each other, legs crossed, and for a moment he just looks at her, lit from behind by the fire’s glow and radiant even with her sandy clothes and matted hair, before he reaches out his hand to lift her chin.

“For what?” she asks, nervous but pleasantly flushed.

He considers for a moment before he finally finds the word he’s looking for.

“Everything,” Zuko tells her. “For everything.”

He leans in and kisses her forehead, and when he pulls away, he’s looking at her with some unknown depth in his eyes that turns her crossed, half-asleep legs to jelly. She returns his smile, and they stay that way for a moment, neither wanting to move.

Something changes that night, in the glow of the bonfire.


	8. Arigata Meiwaku

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is no longer a story, this is a competition to see if I can out-soft myself in every chapter. Oops.

_Arigata meiwaku /_ _ありがた迷惑_

_an unwanted favor for which social convention dictates you must thank the doer, even though it caused more hassle than it was worth._

_**_

After four months in Wakuine, Katara has her fair share of secrets.

  
Some are shared with her, for gossip is practically a form of currency among the Ausa, and the majority of the villagers are all too eager to lavish it upon their guests. Zuko’s awkward, aloof demeanor doesn’t invite the sharing of gossip, though, so it’s always Katara who gets wind of the town’s secrets. She knows about the hopes and dreams and romantic prospects of every single one of Rochana’s sisters, and whose taro harvests are disappointing this year, and who is happily married and who is very prominently _not,_ and all of the sorts of things that go around on a tiny outcrop of land in the middle of the sea. She learns of every going-on in the village, and she’s both honored and amused to be entrusted with their secrets. She keeps them tucked away as carefully as she does her waterskin; she merely smiles when the sounds of shouting three houses down the road die off, or she catches sight of a teenage girl who’d confided in her about a crush eagerly chattering with her friends and throwing glances over at the crush in question.

Some are self-evident. Katara knows that Rochana and Kehale are going to welcome a child just before she leaves the island long before they do; she’s learned to pick up on these things, and she senses the change in her hostess early on. But she keeps the secret: she smiles when she passes them, watches Rochana a little more carefully than usual. Her health has rebounded impressively, but it’s in Katara’s nature to worry about her patients, especially one who likely conceived so shortly after a major illness. Still, she doesn’t say a word; when Rochana finally figures it out, she smiles and pretends she’s surprised.

Others are entirely her own, not entrusted to her but preciously concealed nonetheless. They’re the sweetest secrets she has: how unrestrainedly _happy_ she is here, in a place she should never have been. The circumstances of her arrival in Wakuine were nothing but unfortunate: her family and friends likely think her dead (she worries about that often), and she and Zuko missed a conference that he should’ve led. She knows, unselfishly, that she should be in fits of worry over the state of the Fire Nation in Zuko’s absence, and her family in hers. But she cannot bring herself to; this place feels as much like home as anything has since her childhood. It is so like the South Pole in its size and the way its people care for each other, and in the simplicity of the lives its people lead. She should not, but Katara _loves_ Wakuine. She loves the people, loves the sunsets, loves the coolness of the breezes off the ocean, loves the way people here care for the weak instead of trying to pick them off like she’s seen Fire Nation officials do for months on end. If her ambassadorship dented her faith in humanity, Wakuine is doing everything it can to restore it. Even though she keeps it a secret, she’s fallen in love with this place.

But while those secrets make Katara’s heart swell, other secrets make it pound and flutter and flip, and those are the ones she’s not quite sure what to make of. That is why the secret she holds closest of all is this, the secret of her morning routine.

She’s always been a late sleeper – she rises with the moon, after all – and she knows that Zuko is not. She always hears him stir when he awakens, since their bedrolls are only inches apart on the floor, but she didn’t give it much thought until the third month, falling back to sleep. It took months of that for her curiosity to overcome her aversion to mornings, and she began to wake when he did. She wondered where he’d go, so she decided to watch his movements through a half-closed eye. Now she knows: some days, he disappears down the path, and she does not know where she goes. But most, he does not. Most days, Zuko stands on the breezeway, the wind ruffling his loose hair as he watches the horizon. And Katara’s secret is this:

While he watches the ocean, she watches him.

She doesn’t really know why she props herself up on her elbow every morning and watches his silhouette against the rising sun, but she can’t seem to stop herself. He doesn’t run through his bending katas – that would be a pointless risk in a house as flammable as this one – nor does he really do anything else, that she can tell, but Katara is content to watch him anyway.

This is one of many things about her ever-shifting relationship with Zuko that Katara does not understand. The months have mended their fractured friendship and now it’s good as new – better, even. But, sifting through her memories of the years of their acquaintance before she was appointed as an ambassador, she can’t recall if they were ever as freely affectionate as they are now. She tells herself it’s the product of maturity, and loneliness, and the way that their need to keep up the pretense of being married has bled into even the most private of their interactions.

  
But when she wakes just to watch the sun rise and frame his silhouette in color, she wonders how much truth there is to that excuse.

She decides, one morning four months into their stay, to _do_ something about it. Watching him, she longs for the warmth she feels when he sleeps beside her, even though they don’t touch. It’s simply _there,_ a byproduct of being near him, and in that moment she feels a swell of gratitude – that it was _him,_ that it’s _always_ been him. So she folds her blanket and, on legs shaky with both nerves and exhaustion, she walks through the open door to the breezeway. He doesn’t even hear her approach, and, cautiously, Katara settles in place a few inches behind him.

Inhaling deeply as if to fill her brain with something other than the warnings it tries to give her, Katara wraps her arms around Zuko’s waist and rests her chin on his shoulder.

He stiffens at the unexpected touch, but releases the tension in his muscles when he realizes who it is. “Katara?” he says, his voice still groggy from sleep. “What are you doing up?”

“I heard you come out here,” she says, though she knows it’s a little disingenuous to pretend that she hasn’t noticed that every morning. “So I decided to come say hi.”

“Oh.” He shifts, almost as if he’s trying to snuggle in closer. “Morning, then.”

“Morning.” She reaches blindly for his hands, and smiles when they find hers and hold them in place.

  
“Agni, Katara, your hands are like ice,” he mutters, enveloping her small, freezing hands in his own. She sighs in contentment at feeling of his warm, calloused palms over hers. “I thought you didn’t get cold.”

“Waterbenders run cool,” she says.

“This isn’t _cool,_ Katara, it’s _frigid.”_ He shakes his head. “Are you always this freezing? You’re going to get sick.”

“I’ll just heal myself,” she teases. Her voice comes out heavier than she means for it to. “Besides, that’s a myth. You can’t get sick just from being cold.”

“But you don’t _have_ to be cold.” He runs his still-heated palms over her arms, leaving goosebumps in his wake. “Human heater, remember?”

“What am I supposed to do, ask you to share a bedroll?” her face burns at the mere thought of it. “Thank you, but I’m okay.”

“I just want you to be comfortable.” She can feel the sigh he lets out in the movement of his back against her. “And…this happens to be a thing I can help you with.”

“That’s sweet of you, Zuko,” Katara says, adjusting so that her face rests closer to his against his shoulder. “But really. I’m used to it.”

“If you insist,” he sighs, and she lifts her head to nod.

“If I need help, I’ll say something, okay?” she says.

“You sure about that?” he asks, turning from the railing. Katara’s heart beats a million miles a minute as he faces her, taking her hands, leaning down so his forehead touches hers. He holds their joined hands at chest height and squeezes hers. “You’ve never been great about asking for help.”

“I, um…” her voice comes out choked, hoarse. “Yeah. Yeah, I promise.”

“Good.” He drops his hands and wraps both of his arms around her waist, pulling her flush against his chest. She’s surrounded by warmth, but it has nothing at all to do with the heat in her cheeks. His body blocks the wind, and the world is quiet on the receiving end of his embrace. Katara simply cannot say _nothing_ to this; she has to come up with the right response, and it’s evading her.

  
Finally, she decides on, “make me the same promise, then.”

“You mean…to ask for help if I need it?”

Katara shakes her head. “No. That…if you need or even want something from me, you’ll tell me.” She pulls back just far enough to look at him, and she is physically incapable of fighting a fond smile off of her face as her hand drifts to the curve of his jawline. “Let’s not make this harder for ourselves than it already is.”

“Yeah.” He swallows hard and she feels his jaw flex against her hand as he does. “That…that sounds good.”

Katara shakes her head, so dizzy with affection that she wonders how her heart hasn’t burst out of her chest yet. “Zuko,” she clucks, shaking her head, “you have to _promise.”_

“Okay. I promise.” He manages a weak smile.

“No, you have to promise _right.”_ Katara isn’t sure why she’s doing this; he’s as likely to keep his word as is than he will be if he says it more convincingly. Nevertheless, she does. “You gotta make me believe that you mean it.”

“You already know that I mean it, Katara.” He smiles down at her and the tender shyness of his expression nearly knocks her into the railing. “What else am I supposed to say?”

She tilts her head away from him so she won’t have to see the tenderness that’s turning her brain to mush on his face. “I don’t know,” she admits. “I just…I don’t know.”

“That’s okay.” Sensing that she doesn’t want to look at him, he pulls her close again, and Katara gratefully presses her cheek to his shoulder. “A promise is a promise, right?”

“A promise is a promise,” she echoes, and anything she might have been planning to say dies on her lips when she’s struck by the realization that there had been a _reason_ she’d been so scared to meet Zuko’s eyes.

  
She realizes, half-horrified and half-elated, that she’d turned away because she did not trust herself not to kiss him.

* * *

Both Zuko and Katara have long suspected that Rochana is a bit more perceptive than her husband. More than once, Katara has wondered if the knowing smirks Rochana shoots them mean more than either of them wants to admit; Zuko hasn’t exactly noticed them, but he wouldn’t be surprised. They’re not very good actors.

He knows all too well that his performance has only become convincing because he’s so in love with his stage-wife that it almost hurts to look at her. And if the way Rochana corners him on one of the solo trips to the well that Katara’s talked him into is any indication, she knows it as well as he does.

“Evening, Lee.” She falls into step beside him, carrying a bucket of her own even though it’s just a pretense. “I see she’s talked you into doing her chores again.”

“No, I offered,” he says, glancing over at Rochana suspiciously.

  
“Oh?” she quirks an eyebrow.

“She looked tired,” he says defensively.

“Well, that was sweet of you,” Rochana continues. Her tone is _always_ light – her voice has the gentle lilt of someone constitutionally incapable of unwarranted seriousness – but now it’s even more relaxed than usual. “Not how you probably imagined spending your” – she glares at him pointedly – “ _honeymoon.”_

“Huh?”

Rochana drops her bucket and stops short in the middle of the path, arms crossed. “You can drop the newlyweds act, Lee. I know you and Kanna aren’t married.”

Zuko nearly drops _his_ bucket at that. “What…what are you talking about?”

  
“Did you really think we were going to fall for that?” Rochana’s teasing smirk returns and he nearly faints with relief. “I’m not mad, but… _really?”_

Zuko’s shoulders sag. “Kehale thought we were married when he picked us up and we didn’t bother to correct him.”

“Ah. That would explain it.” Rochana resumes walking, though her bucket is left to roll down the path until it settles in a divot. “I knew there had to be a reason besides your stellar acting skills.”

“Yeah…” Zuko scratches the back of his neck. “We didn’t really know how this was all going to play out, so it seemed…safer.” He glances at Rochana to gauge her reaction. “We both hated having to lie to you all.”

“I know, Lee.” Rochana sets her hand on his arm. “And I’m not upset. I’m a great judge of character. I would’ve known if you’d been bad people, and I would’ve had Kehale chuck you off the cliff the minute I laid eyes on you. But I didn’t.”

He isn’t sure whether to be relieved or terrified.

“Yeah. Um…we’re sorry, and, um, I’m glad you didn’t do that.”

He doesn’t really want to talk about this; he hopes that he can get out of this conversation with, at very least, their aliases intact. Admitting that he and Katara aren’t married is one thing; admitting that he is the sovereign of the country which killed most of the Wakuine villagers’ ancestors and scattered the rest to the winds is entirely another.

Luckily, Rochana doesn’t press. “But I can also tell that this whole fake marriage thing isn’t as fake as it used to be.”

Zuko knows he should be relieved that Rochana is unaware of his identity, but somehow he can’t find it in himself to be. “What does _that_ mean?”

“You love her,” Rochana says plainly. “And she’s trying to figure out whether she loves you.”

Zuko knows there’s no point in denying it, but he also doesn’t feel like confirming Rochana’s suspicions, so he says nothing. She takes that as an excuse to continue. “It’s really sweet,” she says, the corners of her mouth quirking upwards. “Gives me hope, I guess.”

“Really?” Zuko raises his eyebrows. “This seems like the last place that anyone would need hope.”

“It isn’t as idyllic as it looks,” Rochana admits. “We look out for each other, yeah, but when something goes wrong, it gets ugly quickly.”

“Oh.” Zuko frowns, unsure what to make of this new information. “You mean because the town is so small?”

“News travels fast,” Rochana says. “And so does noise. Bad relationships have nowhere to hide, and…there are a surprising amount of them.”

“You and Kehale don’t seem to be like that,” Zuko observes.

“No, we’re not. I got lucky.” Rochana inhales deeply, then lets the breath go. “I know you guys probably think Kehale is the norm on this island, but…he’s not. He’s…special. In a lot of ways.”

“I kind of figured he was.” When he thinks about it, none of what Rochana is saying surprises him at all. “I mean, he crossed the ocean to get you a plant.” 

Rochana’s eyes shine with affection. “He did, and I can’t believe it.” She shakes her head, but she’s smiling the whole time. “And he managed to bring back the first guests we’ve had in decades. What are the odds of that?” 

“You’re lucky,” he says, unsure why he’s saying it but feeling the need to anyhow. “That…you love someone who loves you like that.”

“I am,” Rochana murmurs, more to herself than to Zuko. She’s gazing off into the distance now and one of her hands comes to rest in an odd position against her abdomen. “And I think you’re going to be too.”

“Really?”

Rochana nods. “I’m not going to pretend to know anything about you, Lee,” she says, “but I know that whatever you and Kanna have is one-in-a-million.”

“I wouldn’t call it that,” he says, deflecting.

“But I would. And which one of us has actual experience in this area?”

Zuko can’t exactly argue with that.

“Anyways,” Rochana continues. “You should talk to her.”

“And say what?”

“Tell her how you feel.” Rochana elbows his side. “My brother’s getting married in about six weeks. Might as well do it then, hm? That gives you almost two months to work up to it.”

  
“He is?” Zuko wonders how something this momentous, happening on an island the that feels like it’s no bigger than a thumbtack, could’ve escaped his notice. “I never heard about that.”

“Oh, no, it’s old news,” Rochana assures him, and he wonders how that could be true. “Every so often, a couple of teenagers will go live on the mainland for several years, with the agreement that they’ll come back to get married.” She gives him a _don’t-make-me-spell-it-out_ look but does anyway when she sees the confusion on Zuko’s face. “Because if we didn’t get new people every so often, we’d be marrying our cousins within a generation.”

“Oh.” Zuko’s cheeks burn. “Of course.”

“So anyways,” Rochana continues, “my brother Chanchai went away to the mainland eight years ago and brought back a fiancée last year. It’s customary for the future spouses to spend a year on the island once they get engaged to make sure they’re not going to hate it here, so everyone knows Yera now and they’ve moved on to newer gossip.” Seeing that Zuko is, again, confused, Rochana elaborates. “Yera’s his fiancée. I’m pretty sure he found Yera selling dishes in Gaoling.”

“Do they always go to the Earth Kingdom?” Zuko asks, setting down his buckets on the edge of the well. It’s taken too long to get here, but he doesn’t mind.

“No, they used to go wherever it was safe,” Rochana explains. “We had a lot of Kyoshi Warrior brides for a while because it was the only place that was neutral. Since the war ended, we’ve had a couple of people go off…wherever. Chanchai went to the Earth Kingdom, but we have another guy in the Northern Water Tribe right now, and a girl in the Fire Nation.”

“And what does this have to do with me and Kanna?” Zuko asks.

“Nothing, but weddings are great for confessions.” Rochana nudges him with her elbow again. “Just saying.”

  
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Zuko says, but he’s really not sure if he will. Loving Katara is one thing; _telling_ her is entirely another.

He supposes he’ll have to see.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You have no idea how hard it was for me to restrain myself from writing a kiss into this. That said, I hope this provides a much-needed distraction from the Election Day anxiety.


	9. Kampai

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kinda hate this chapter. I feel like it's irredeemably twee, but seeing as this no longer even as a plot beyond "soft, comforting feels," I'm posting it anyway.

_Kampai / かんぱい_

_"Cheers" - literally, "empty the cup"_

***

Woven cloth is rare in Wakuine. This is mostly true for practical reasons: it has to be imported from the mainland Fire Nation or Earth Kingdom, and the expense is more than it’s worth. It’s not as hardy as barkcloth, and it isn’t easily replaced; fabric is not what most islanders would choose to import in exchange for what little produce they can trade for mainland goods. But, Katara learns, there is one exception to this rule.

When a mainlander proposes to an islander, the spouse hailing from Wakuine is tasked with bringing back enough bolts of fabric to outfit every islander for the occasion. It’s an entirely impractical tradition, and it takes nearly the entire island’s combined labor to sew enough clothing to give everyone something to wear. So Katara is stunned when, the morning of Chanchai and Yera’s wedding, she’s presented with a neatly-folded pile of gold cloth.

“We started making this as soon as you arrived!” an older woman crows, all too proud of her hospitality in thinking of Katara. It’s warranted, to be fair: when Katara unfolds the clothes, she’s almost stunned into silence. Her dress is gold and slim-fitted, with a floor-length skirt and a long strip of cloth to be work over the shoulder. Red embroidery adorns the hem of the skirt and the edges of the shoulder-strip (she’s not sure what to call it). It’s possibly the most beautiful piece of clothing she’s ever owned, and she cannot even imagine how long it must’ve taken to sew.

  
“I…I can’t,” she stammers, taken aback. “This is way too generous. I couldn’t-“

“And waste our hours of labor?” another old woman crosses her arms and glares at Katara. “You’re not Sawad, but you’re gonna look like you are tonight if it kills us.”

“And it almost did,” the first woman cuts in again. “Those stitches…atch. My eyesight isn’t what it used to be.”

It’s silly, but Katara has to fight not to let tears pool in her eyes. “Thank you,” she says, and there’s no mistaking the earnestness in her voice. “It’s beautiful.”

“Darn right it is,” the woman says. “Now go put that thing on.”

* * *

This should not feel as strange as it does.

Zuko hadn’t expected to be presented with a suit of traditional Sawad clothing on Chanchai and Yera’s wedding day, but it really shouldn’t be much of an adjustment. Sawad clothes aren’t all that different from those of the rest of the Fire Nation, after all. And, true, the butterfly-clasped ivory tunic and loose maroon pants that a few village ladies have given to him is more comfortable than his usual regalia. But it feels…weird.

Not the clothing. The clothing is fine – beautiful, even. Someone clearly spared no expense in making these. But the _principle_ of the thing is almost impossible for Zuko to wrap his head around. Yes, he’s gotten used to the collectivist nature of island life, but this goes above and beyond even what he’s learned to expect from the over-generous citizens of Wakuine. Someone must’ve toiled over these garments for hours, all for a near-stranger; it’s unfathomable.

Nevertheless, he wears them with unspoken pride.

“So handsome!” one of Rochana’s sisters – and one of the groom’s, Zuko realizes – calls as he passes by, making his way to the town center where the party has already gathered. The festivities won’t start for another hour, but no one seems to mind standing out in the burning midday sun. They are all engaged in lively conversation, some fanning themselves, as he approaches, and all are dressed in Sawad clothing – though not all of the guests had ancestors from Sawadee, the groom does, so it is a gesture of respect to wear the traditional _sabai_ and _pha chung hang,_ all created specially for the occasion. The work takes months; needless to say, no one complains of the heat. Even guests aren’t exempt and Zuko realizes, his eyes widening at what would seem to an outsider to be nothing at all, that if this outfit was foisted on him, Katara probably has one, too.

He’s not sure if he’s going to survive that sight, but even so, finding her becomes his first and only priority.

Zuko dodges through the crowd, awkwardly excusing himself as he squeezes between clusters of wedding guests until he finds her. She’s not facing him, but she doesn’t need to be; all he needs to see is the cascade of chestnut curls down the back of a gold _sabai_ to know that he’s found her. He takes two more steps forward and then, because he is Zuko, he promptly freezes in place.

It appears that Zuko’s earlier assessment was correct: with all likelihood, he will, in fact, be passing away with in the hour.

He doesn’t have to move, though. Katara turns to glance at something behind her and when her eyes land on him, standing shell-shocked in the middle of the crowd, her face lights up. “Lee!” she cries, gesturing for him to come join the group she’s talking to. “Don’t just stand there, be sociable for once!”

“K-Kanna…” is all he can get out, because oh, was he _absolutely, one-hundred-percent, beyond-the-smallest-shadow-of-a-doubt right._

She is in gold, a floor-length suit embroidered at its hems with maroon. Its fitted bodice and skirt mold to her curves and the excess fabric of her _sabai,_ fluttering in the wind behind her, softens its effect. Her hair is loose save for its ubiquitous loops, and her face is open and content and full of mirth.

Simply put, she is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen or will ever see again, and wants to freeze time and live in the vision that is his pretend wife for the rest of his sorry existence on this planet.

“Lee?” Katara tries again, seeing that he’s still goggle-eyed. “Are you good?”

“He probably has heatstroke.” Rochana’s youngest sister Malee, dressed in pink, peers worriedly at Zuko. “I think you should get him inside.”

“He doesn’t have heatstroke, idiot,” next-oldest sister Arinya scoffs. “He’s in _love.”_

“Well, I should hope so. I married him, didn’t I?” Katara says without a hint of a blush. Rochana and Kehale know the truth but thought it’d be easier not to feed the rumor mill, so they’re keeping up the act in public; besides, it’s almost second-nature now. She walks over to Zuko, takes his arm, and coaxes his glued-to-the-spot feet to move. “Now, Lee, Ari here was just telling me about the best places to look for iguana-dolphins…”

He is not listening to a word that Katara is saying, and she knows it.

* * *

If the lead-in to a Wakuine wedding is endlessly drawn-out, the ceremony more than makes up for it. The couple is trotted out by a crowd of relatives (Katara suspects that not many of them are actually relatives, given the size of the crowd and what she knows about the groom’s family), makes a series of promises that sound far more like a business contract than any wedding vows that Katara has ever heard, exchange daggers embedded with shark teeth, and are almost immediately ushered off down the path while the guests still linger. The whole ceremony hasn’t a hint of ceremony in it and is really nowhere near romantic, and Katara barely even gets a look at the bride, a broad, sturdy Earth National who will no doubt be just fine in a rugged environment such as this, before the proceedings are over; she has to blink several times to make sure she didn’t miss anything. Rochana, standing beside her, smiles knowingly at her confusion.

“It’s short because the couple has to do a long ritual on their own,” she explains. The place is buzzing with activity: some villagers carry out huge vats of kava, others drums and an instrument that looks like a wildly oversized flute and (Katara raises her eyebrows) a tsungi horn. “Everyone just sits around drinking kava and talking until they come back.”

“Which is…when?” Katara asks. She’s never heard of the bride and groom leaving their own wedding before.

  
“Depends.” Rochana smirks. “If you catch my drift.”

“ _…that’s_ the ritual?”

“Actually, no, it isn’t.” Rochana gestures around the clearing with the hand that isn’t resting on her stomach – she’s showing now, though barely. “Notice how all of the married women have their hair down, and the single ones have it up? That’s a tradition in Ausa culture.”

“And?” Katara asks, finding herself curious. She hadn’t noticed that.

“We get to take our hair down when we get married, so it’s become a part of the wedding itself,” Rochana explains. “The bride’s family does a really elaborate hairstyle and then, after the ceremony, the groom has to figure out how to take it down. Then he has to wash her hair, and they come back to the party.”

  
“With her hair still wet? That sounds…cold,” Katara remarks. “That’s really interesting, though. Does it…have a significance?”

  
Rochana nods. “Oh, yes. Every part of the ritual has a meaning. Like…the bride’s family does as complicated a hairstyle as they can manage, because they want to make the groom take forever to get it down. I guess it’s…supposed to remind him of the perseverance he’s going to need to make a marriage work.”

“What about the washing part?” Katara asks. She knows wedding customs vary widely by culture, but she’s never heard of anything like this, and she’s fascinated. “What does that mean?”  
  


“I think that part is about humility. You know, caring for each other, putting their needs first, that kind of thing.” She smirks. “And, y’know…it’s also a pretty good bonding experience, if you know what I mean.”

Katara looks away to try to to conceal the flush in her cheeks. “But…it’s literally a scalp massage.”

“Yeah, but do you have any idea how hot scalp massages can be?”

Katara doesn’t want to read too much into that. “No, but…I’ll take your word for it.”

“Oh! And there’s also the public part of the ritual,” Rochana remembers. “The couple comes back and does a few dances – that’s supposed to symbolize, like, passing on tradition and acknowledging your roots – and before that, there’s the flower presentation. That’s for the whole party.”

“Oh?” that gets Katara’s attention again. “What’s that?”

“The best source of gossip this place ever gets.” Rochana grins conspiratorially. “Basically, if anyone’s married or otherwise in love with a woman, it’s a built-in confession. You just give her a yellow plumeria and if she accepts it, she feels the same way. The married couples always do it, but everyone cares a lot more about the teenagers who use this as an easy opportunity to confess. No one really knows what it means anymore, but it’s fun to watch.”

“Wait, so will I have to…?” Katara asks, pitching her voice up so that Rochana will know what she’s implying. Their hostess knows now that she and Zuko aren’t married, and they’ve found her help in navigating interactions invaluable. “You know…?”

“Oh, definitely. It would stand out if a husband didn’t give his wife a plumeria.” Rochana, when she notices the village women lining up for the flower ceremony, pats Katara’s shoulder before she sets off to join the line. “Don’t sweat it. You’re gonna be fine.”

* * *

Zuko finds it almost painful that there’s a confession ritual built into Ausa weddings and he’s being forced to partake in it under a false pretense. He wonders if this was why Rochana had encouraged him to tell Katara how he felt at the wedding, though he’s pretty sure it isn’t. Kehale pulled him aside before the ceremony and warned him that he’d have to do this to keep up appearances, so he figures that this isn’t the occasion Rochana had in mind.

  
It still _feels_ like confessing, though, and it still makes his heart race.

As soon as the flower ceremony is announced, the guests mob the containers of white and yellow plumerias carefully plucked for the occasion. Zuko picks the freshest one he can find, unwilling to settle for anything less even under a pretense, and approaches Katara with far less haste than any of the other husbands and suitors and would-be suitors. His feet drag, and it’s only the puzzled look on Katara’s face that gets him to move. Even when he stands in front of her, though, he’s frozen.

“Um.” He manages a brief glance up at her. “This is, um…this is for you.”

_If you really want to be convincing, put it in her hair yourself,_ Kehale had told him, so he extends his hand cautiously, asking for permission. Katara nods, and he tucks her hair behind her right ear before he places the stem of the flower in the space that it leaves behind. His hand, almost shaking, lingers at the side of her head a beat too long after he places the flower. She looks up at him, her eyes wide, and he swears he nearly keels over on the spot. Unable to resist, he brushes his fingers behind her ear on the way down, letting his closed fingers trace her jaw as his hand drifts back down. It catches her chin, finally, and she smiles, a shy, hesitant, _radiant_ thing.

It would take all of one second to lean in and kiss her, and Zuko thinks it might be something like perfection. But this is _fake,_ he reminds himself – if not to him, then to her.

So he kisses her forehead, as he’s grown used to doing, and tries to convince himself that he’s misreading the disappointment in her eyes when he pulls away.

* * *

The dancing begins in earnest when Yera and Chanchai return from…wherever it was they’d disappeared to. They’re flushed and giggly and seem entirely determined to be as undignified as is humanly possible tonight, and, in the torchlight, hemmed in by the sunset, they begin their requisite dances. They’re quite beautiful; Ausa dances seem to be displays of cooperation and athleticism, nothing like the stiff Fire Nation dances Katara had to learn upon becoming ambassador. The villagers cheer politely for each of them (though…not as politely as some of them might’ve liked, given the amount of kava that’s been flowing since mid-afternoon), and after a few moments, the floor opens.

Ordinarily, Katara would jump at the chance to dance. It’s a way to pass the time, and it’s fun and joyous and celebratory. But tonight, she’s content to linger on the sidelines. She doesn’t know the complicated Ausa dances that the villagers perform with such ease, all tiny, precise movements that allow the women to dance in the pencil-straight skirts of their wedding attire. No, she’s quite content to linger here, sitting outside of the circle of torches that comprises the dance floor with Zuko and eating the spit-roasted pork that the groom’s family prepared for the occasion.

It’s odd, because Katara has never been content with inaction. She needs to be in the thick of things, getting her hands dirty, or she doesn’t feel quite right. But today, all she wants is to observe. A part of her doesn’t want to sully the proceedings. It’s as much a celebration of culture as of an event, and she’s as much of a stranger to it, even after five months, as anyone. She’d feel…invasive, if she were to dance tonight.

But another part of her wonders if she has everything she needs where she already is.

“Zuko?” she says softly, knowing no one will hear his name but trying to be careful anyway.

He shifts so he can look at her, and she leans her head against his shoulder. “Yeah?” he asks, opening his arm so he can wrap it around her back and let her settle in against his chest.

“This is going to sound crazy,” she says. “What with all of the downsides to us being here, but, uh, I’m…”

“Yes?”

“I’m glad we got stuck here.” She amends her statement. “I’m glad I got stuck here with _you.”_

“I am, too.”

* * *

In the end, Zuko does not take Rochana’s advice. He does not tell Katara how he feels, nor does he come anywhere close. But he realizes that he does not need to. Not now, not yet.

Right now, he has her even without saying the words, and it’s enough for him.


	10. Fukiburi

_Fukiburi /_ 吹き降り

_Driving rain_

_**_

“And then I was all like, ‘didn’t you say this island was uninhabited?’, and Kehale was like, ‘it is,’ and then-“

“Somboon.” Kehale levels the teenager with his stoniest glare. “Shut. _Up.”_

“Oh, come on, I wasn’t even saying anything offensive this time!”

Kehale, shifting so his wife can recline against his chest, rolls his eyes. “Doesn’t mean we aren’t all sick of hearing that story.” The collective chuckle around the bonfire – apparently the village often does this on chilly nights – seems to indicate agreement.

“Oh, I don’t mind,” Katara says, waving off her expected annoyance with a dismissive flap of her hand. “I find it amusing that he never manages to tell the same version twice.” She leans back against the felled palm tree that she’s using to prop herself up, stretching, then rests her head against her “husband’s” shoulder. She no longer deludes herself in claiming that she has no choice, though she doesn’t. There are a circle of these logs around the fire, and the couples are all clustered at the ends, curled up next to each other, but she suspects that she’d be snuggled against Zuko even if no one else were. In eight months, she’s grown shockingly accustomed to the feeling of his warmth. 

“Well, that’s nice of you, but I think Somboon’s had the floor for long enough,” Rochana says with a pointed look at her nephew. One of her hands absentmindedly traces circles on the fabric of her dress where it stretches over her prominent stomach. “Anyone else?” she pauses, but no one answers. “Anyone at all?”

Rochana’s oldest sister, Lawan, catches on. “Yera was telling me about all of the difficult customers she got in Gaoling,” she says, gently elbowing her sister-in-law’s side. “Want to tell them that story?”

Yera, who’s turning out to be rather shy, shakes her head nervously. Lawan sighs, and she looks like she’s about to speak again when a fat raindrop hits her forehead and she stops short.

  
“Would you look at that,” she mutters under her breath, then adds, loudly this time, “well, guess we have to head in!”

True to form, one drop turns into twenty and soon there’s a light but steady rain falling. The villagers start to move to shelter; children shriek in some combination of offense and delight, and Katara reflexively bends the water around herself and Zuko so that they’ll make it back to the house dry. Zuko sets his hand on her shoulder to stop her, though, and she lets her hand drop, frowning when the raindrops she’d been deflecting begin to pelt their hair and clothes.

“What was that for?” she asks, a little bit peevish.

“I like the rain,” he says simply. The storms that crop up over the ocean rarely cross the island, so they’ve never been out in one before. “I…kind of don’t want to stay dry.”

“Really?” Katara takes his offered hand as they begin to walk back up the path towards Rochana and Kehale’s house. “You usually hate it.”

“It’s been a while.” He shrugs, and she knows not to ask what that means. “Not a lot of changes of pace on this island, so I’ll take what I can get.”

“I see,” she says pensively. The rain is beginning to pick up, so she accelerates, almost-but-not-quite breaking into a jog; Zuko follows behind. “It’s going to get really bad, though, and we don’t really have many changes of clothes-“

“You’re a waterbender, remember?” Zuko calls over the rising wind. “You can just dry us off!”

He’s right, of course, and it’s a terrible excuse even without that. They’ve been sleeping in the beaten-up but still wearable clothes they’d been wearing at the time of the shipwreck, anyways, and it’s nearly nightfall anyways. But she’s taken a stance and she feels compelled to defend it.

  
“Well, yeah, but…” a bolt of lightning splits the sky as a curtain of rain doubles back on the wind to blow in their faces and Katara yelps indignantly as it soaks her face. She bends the worst of it out of her eyes, but she knows she still looks like a soaked and put-out dove-hen. “Seriously, Zuko? You wanted to walk home in this?”

Evidently he does not, because he takes off running, and Katara is all too happy to follow. Where dust usually rises around their feet along the path, now there is none; it’s not muddy yet, either, but it’s certainly not dry. Katara can’t help but bark out an unabashed, relieved laugh when Rochana and Kehale’s house comes into view, and by the time they reach the entryway, they’re both soaked and flushed but curiously elated.

“I still contend that that was unnecessary,” she teases, bending the water out of her hair, then her clothes, then his. “Didn’t you tell me once that I was going to catch my death if I got too cold?”

“You still are,” he chuckles as they stand on the porch. Both are content to stay in the sheltered breezeway for a moment to watch the rain fall, and Zuko wraps his arms around Katara to warm her.

She lets out a content little sigh as she leans back into the solid warmth of his embrace. “You,” she says, “are absolutely ridiculous.”

“I’ve been called worse.” His laugh rumbles in his chest and she can feel it against her back.

She wonders when _this_ became normal, but she isn’t in the habit of questioning a good thing.

“Yes, but still.” She takes his hands, which are clasped at her waist. “I can take care of myself.”

“I know you can, but you shouldn’t always have to,” he says lightly. A peal of thunder rattles the frame of the house, but neither is particularly aware of it. “Especially when you have a firebender at your beck and call.”

“I’m going to remind you that you said that,” Katara teases.

_When we’re home, and things are normal again,_ she thinks but doesn’t add. _Will all of this evaporate into thin air when we leave?_

_Would you be able to love me in that other life?_

“Please do,” he says softly.

She wonders if that is as close as she’s going to get to a _yes._

* * *

She hears him wake with a start and she is awake nearly as quickly as he is.

Katara knows that Zuko has nightmares: he’d mentioned it in a few of his letters, a year or three ago when things were a little less strange between them. She’d always felt honored that she’d been the one he had chosen to open up to about them, but she’s never actually witnessed one. Now, she’s decently sure that she has. He sits bolt upright, his breathing ragged, and his entire body flinches when a flssh of lightning outside lights the room.

“Zuko?” she says, dragging her exhausted body into a seated position in spite of its protests. “Are you okay?”

He turns to look at her in the darkness, and she hears his breath catch. “I’m okay,” he says, though he doesn’t sound convincing or convinced in the slightest. “Go back to sleep. I’ll be fine.”

Katara knows, with another fork of lightning that makes him flinch and curl in on himself, that he’s lying. “You don’t have to do this alone, Zuko.”

“You need to sleep, Katara.”

“I’m not going to be able to sleep when I know that you’re having a nightmare,” she murmurs, and she makes up her mind in an instant. She crawls to his bedroll and sits a few inches in front of him, her blanket still wrapped around her shoulders. “Do you need to talk about it?”

“Not right now,” he says.

  
“Okay.” She’s never done this before, so it’s going to take a little trial and error to figure out what he needs, but she’s determined to try. “Do you, um…do you need water or something?”

“No. Thanks.”

“Then…” she wracks her brain, remembering nightmares she’s had and wondering what she’d wanted in those moments. “Um. Would it help if…if I stayed with you?”

She expects Zuko to shake his head, or protest that there’s no need for that when she’s already here, sleeping inches away from him. But he doesn’t. “Please,” he rasps, and that is all she needs to hear.

Katara gestures for him to come to her, and she wraps her arms around his neck. He doesn’t so much lean in as he collapses against her, and Katara nearly falls backwards at the unexpected weight. She considers that that might work, though, and leans back to see if he likes that more.

She figures, when he pillows his head against her chest and lets out a soft, desperate whine, that he does.

“I’ve got you,” she murmurs as she settles back against the mat. She’s too far to grab a pillow but she can’t find it in herself to mind that her head rests against the bare mat right now. Careful not to move Zuko, she unwinds the blanket from her shoulders and drapes it over his bare back. “I’m here, okay?” He clings to her in reply and she cannot help but press her lips to the crown of his head. She can feel his heart racing, and she rubs his shoulders, hoping it’ll help to calm him – she really doesn’t know, has nothing to go by, so she tries things and discards them when they don’t work. That one doesn’t; she switches to stroking his hair.

His breathing and frantic heartbeat slow when her fingers begin to work through his tangled, shoulder-length hair, so she keeps it up. _He must like this,_ she thinks with a twinge of near-unbearable affection. “That’s it, Zuko,” she whispers, pressing another kiss to his hair. “You’re doing great.”

“It’s not about the storm.” She’s surprised when Zuko speaks up. “I know what you’re probably thinking. It isn’t.”

“I didn’t think it was, Zuko,” she reassures him. She hasn’t even had time to consider the causes of his nightmare, let alone wager guesses.

“Sometimes, back home, I’d get really bad ones on stormy nights,” he admits, and she stops stroking his hair to hold him. Here, at his most vulnerable, Zuko is all but baring his soul to her, and she is unwilling to interrupt. “I’d see lightning, and…I’d panic.”

_I’ll show you lightning._

She holds him as close as she knows how.

“But it’s not that right now,” he continues. “I…actually haven’t dreamed about the Agni Kai in a while.”

“Is that good?”

“In a way,” he says. “But there’s always something else to take its place.”

“If you don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to,” Katara tells him. “You know that, right?”

“I think it would help.” He takes a deep, steadying breath, and it gives Katara just enough time to let the words sink in: _I trust you._

“Then I’ll listen,” she replies, her voice firm with conviction but gentle with affection. “I’m going to be here as long as you need me.”

“They’ve been about the shipwreck lately.”

“Lately?” Katara squints in the darkness. “I haven’t heard you wake up since we got here.”

“I usually go outside when I get like this,” Zuko admits. “So I won’t wake you.”

Her heart breaks for him without even meaning to. “You don’t have to do that, Zuko,” Katara murmurs. “You never have to do that.”

  
“I have a problem. I have to deal with it where it won’t disturb anyone.” He opens his eyes and turns his head to peer up at her, though neither can see the other very well in the dark. “So yeah, I do have to go.”

“No, no, no,” she insists, shaking her head. “I _want_ you to wake me, Zuko. You’re not a disturbance and I want to be there for you. It’s never a burden when…”

_When you love someone._

She stops herself short before she says it, but it’s the first time she’s even allowed the thought to slip past her defenses and it jolts her, knowing what she feels so clearly. She loves the man in her arms with everything she is, everything she has been, everything she could possibly be. And he needs her, and she is not – _ever_ – going to fail to answer that call.

“…when somebody needs you,” she finishes. Even though it’s less than the confession she truly wants to make, it’s self-evident, and it won’t overwhelm Zuko at a moment when he needs to be reassured. “Please don’t do that anymore. If it helps you to…” she pauses, trying to find a tamer way to word it. “Do this, I want you to ask me. Tell me what you need and I’ll do it, okay?”

“Okay,” he says hoarsely.

“We promised,” she whispers. “Didn’t we?”

“We did,” he sighs. “But…I didn’t exactly want to tell you that all of my nightmares are about you.”

“About me?”

“The shipwreck,” he says with a shudder. She strokes his back and this time he seems to like that more than he did the first. “You didn’t know this, but when you went under, I…I didn’t know if you were going to make it back up.”

“I’m a master waterbender. Of course I was going to.”

“Who was knocked out and couldn’t bend,” he reminds her. “And I couldn’t see you, and it was dark and loud and there were rocks everywhere that I had to try to dodge and…and…”

“I’m here now,” she reminds him. “We’re safe.”

“I know.” He buries his face in her tunic. “But I didn’t then, and I realized that I’d made a mistake that I might never be able to fix, and I didn’t know how I was going to be able to live with myself if I didn’t get that chance.”

“You mean…”

“Letting things get so bad between us.” He shifts so that he’s lying to her side, propped up on his elbow, and threads a lock of her hair around his finger. “I know we got past that months ago, but it _scared_ me, Katara. You were one of the most important people in the world to me until you suddenly just…weren’t.” He takes in a deep, shuddery breath. “And I thought I would never get to make things right.”

“That’s what you were dreaming about?”

“It changes a little every time,” he admits. “Sometimes I never see you come up, and when I wake up on the shore and go out looking for you, I can’t find you anywhere. Others I get you back to shore but you…” he closes his eyes as if the image hurts to remember. “You don’t make it. And sometimes we both drown.”

“Zuko…”  
  


“Now you see why I didn’t want to say anything?”

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers, turning on her side so she can press her face into the crook of his neck.

“It’s not your fault.” His voice sounds flat, monotonous, and she knows he’s faking nonchalance when it’s the last thing he probably feels.

“But it was my fault that I let things get so bad,” she tells him, “and that I didn’t realize that this was happening to you, and-“

“Don’t, Katara.”

“Okay.” She wilts, the tension leaking from her muscles almost instantly, and now Zuko holds her, letting her collapse against his chest.

“They’ve gotten worse as time has gone on,” he says after a moment, his fingers tracing the ridge of her spine. “The dreams used to be more about me. I would drown, or I wouldn’t be able to find you, or I wouldn’t get rescued. But now they’re almost always about you.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“I guess…” he pauses to figure out the words. “I guess I just realized, the more time I spent with you here, that I didn’t know what I would do if I lost you, and not just then. If I lost you now…”

“You’re not going to lose me,” she says fiercely. “You’re never going to lose me.”

“Don’t promise me things like that, Katara,” he says, his voice breaking as he presses her chin to the top of her head and holds onto her for dear life. “Please don’t say that when you don’t know if you can…if you can…”

“Zuko, I’m here,” she says, clinging to him just as tightly. “I’m here and I’m staying. I _promise.”_

“I don’t want to live in a world that doesn’t have you in it, Katara.”

They both fall silent, for it’s as close to a love confession as he’s ever likely to come.

“I don’t either,” Katara admits, and they are silent after that.

There are no words left to say.

* * *

When Zuko wakes the next morning, he wonders at the crick in his neck, then the lack of a pillow beneath his head and the way his limbs are falling off of the mat. Then he remembers why, and he smiles, because his arms are full of Katara and he can feel the rise and fall of her back as she breathes, and her hair tickles his chin as it splays out across his chest, and he decides that if he could wake up this way every remaining day of his life, he would have no reason to fear death; it would be a happy enough end if _this_ was what he'd gotten out of his tenure on earth. He kisses Katara’s hair, smiling to himself when she stirs ever-so-slightly against him but does not wake, and he is more sure of himself than he has ever been in his life.

“I love you,” he murmurs, and though she sleeps on, unaware and uninterrupted, it is an indescribable relief to have said it at all.


	11. Kintsugi

_Kintsugi /_ _金継ぎ_ _,_

_“golden joinery” –repairing broken pottery with gold lacquer dust; the act of taking a broken thing and making it even more beautiful for having been broken_

**

“They’re calling her Kalani.”

Zuko peers over Katara’s shoulder at the baby in her arms. His chin rests against her shoulder, though he doesn’t mean for it to. “Kalani?”

Katara nods with a faraway smile. “After her aunt,” she says, reaching out her free hand so that the baby can grasp it. “The one who went to the mainland.”

“That’s nice,” Zuko says absentmindedly, watching Kalani’s face intently. It’s red and pinched and she looks madder than anyone who’s only been in the world for a matter of hours ought to be, and he can’t get over how _squishy_ she is. “She’s so small.”

Katara laughs softly. “You don’t have much experience with babies, do you?”

“What?” Zuko feigns offense that he can’t bring himself to feel. “What makes you say that?”

“Just a hunch.” She shifts Kalani in her arms as she begins to fuss.

“Well, you’re right.” He smiles sheepishly. “I don’t.”

  
“Want to hold her?” Katara offers.

“Oh, uh…no,” he stammers. “I’d…I don’t know how to do this. I would drop her and Rochana and Kehale would throw me off the cliffs and-“

“Zuko, she’s a baby, not a landmine,” Katara reassures him, turning so she can hand him the baby. “And you won’t drop her. She’s not that heavy.”

“But I don’t know anything about babies,” Zuko counters. “You just said that.”

“Well, you’re going to have to have an heir eventually, right? Better start practicing.” Katara shifts Kalani in her arms to give him a better look. “See? Not so scary.”

Zuko doesn’t see fit to tell her that, in all likelihood, the heir to his throne is going to be raised by a series of nurses. Besides, he can’t deny her anything right now; her eyes are so bright and her expression so excited that he could not dream of it.

“Fine,” he huffs, and he takes the baby when she’s offered to him. Kalani fusses again, her tiny limbs kicking out in every direction, but she settles, and when her eyes flutter open, he feels like the wind has been knocked out of his chest. It’s ridiculous, really – as much as he’s come to care for Rochana and Kehale, this isn’t his child, and the brown eyes blinking up at him are not his own. But the way this brand-new baby trusts a stranger like him, wholly trusting in her innocence. Something about the vulnerability of a child who hasn’t learned not to trust the arms that hold her – Zuko can only pray that she never will – twists his heart painfully. Though there’s nothing that is his about Kalani, his urge to hold her, safe and secure away from a world that he knows is not kind to the weak, is almost overwhelming.

“Hey,” he murmurs, letting Kalani wrap her hand around his finger as Katara had done.

She starts to cry in response and Zuko’s eyes widen; suddenly his urge to protect her is supplanted entirely by panic. “Wait, what did I do?” he says, looking frantically to Katara. “Why is she crying?”

  
“She’s just hungry, Zuko,” Katara tells him. “It’s nothing to worry about. She just needs her mom, right, Lani?”

“You gave her a nickname?” Zuko can’t help but smile at that.

“I delivered her, Zuko. I think I earned the right,” Katara says proudly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me for a minute…”

  
“Right,” Zuko mutters, barely aware of anything happening around him.

All he can see as Katara disappears into the bedroom to hand Kalani back to her mother is her soft smile, the joy on her face, the way she loves this child as much as he’s unwilling to admit he does.

Part of him has to fight not to imagine a world in which the baby she is holding is theirs.

* * *

She finds him, as she often does, lying out in the grass a little ways beyond the house.

“Holding babies makes me think about life,” he says, not even having to see her to know that Katara is approaching. “Can you not make me do that?”

Katara lies on the blanket beside him and elbows his side. “You loved it. Don’t lie.”

“Yeah, but now I’m thinking too much,” he sighs.

“What about?” Katara asks. She knows the way he (over)thinks, and she has her guesses, but she waits to hear his answer first.

“I don’t know, just…the rest of my life, I guess.” He pauses, then resumes. “That’s pretty vague, isn’t it?”

“A little.” She shifts, turning to him. “What about it?”

“I don’t know, just…family.” He glances over at her and, seeing the confusion on her face, clarifies. “Having one of my own.”

“It was that heirs comment that did it, wasn’t it?” Katara says. She knows him too well not to have noticed the way he’d stiffened when she brought up the question of succession earlier.

“Yeah,” he admits. He doesn’t try to pull her close this time; that is how Katara knows he’s deep in thought. Usually, he touches her at every opportunity. “I don’t know how I feel about that.”

“Having kids?”

“I can’t wrap my head around it,” he tells her. “Being married is easy enough to imagine. I’ve been in love before, and the idea of it is…nice, really.” Katara’s breath catches in her throat at that, but he doesn’t seem to notice. “But being a parent…it _terrifies_ me, Katara.”

“I get that.” She reaches for his hand and he gladly takes it. “It’s a scary thing for anyone to think about.” _Let alone someone whose parents hurt them so much,_ she adds in her head.

“Yeah, but it’s worse than just that. I have to make sure my kid doesn’t get messed up _and_ run a country _and_ prepare that kid to lead said country, and…I might not even get to be a part of their life, and-“

“Why not?” Katara narrows her eyes. “I get why being a father would scare you, but why couldn’t you?”

“Fire Lords don’t typically raise their kids. Nurses do that.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Katara huffs. “What kind of mother would let random servants raise her baby?”

“Um." Zuko looks like he's not sure whether or not to be offended. "Mine?" 

“Oh. Sorry.” Katara bites her lip guiltily. “I didn’t-“

  
“No, you’re right. It’s…not good. But it’s hard to break with tradition, and it’s going to be up to my wife how present we are in their lives moreso than it’s going to be mine.”

“Oh. Right.” Katara doesn’t want to articulate any of the thousand things rushing through her mind at his words. “Well, then, can’t you just marry a woman who wants your kids to…you know…be parented?” she cringes at her awkward phrasing, but it gets the point across.

“I could.” Zuko props himself up on his elbow and looks at her. “But it’s hard to find a woman like that who won’t scandalize my council. Most high-ranking Fire Nation women weren’t raised by their own parents, and if my wife wanted to hand off our children to nurses like her parents had done, I wouldn’t be able to stop her.”

“Who cares about the council?” Katara’s eyes flash. “You need to marry someone who’s _competent,_ not _proper!”_

He can’t help but smile at her conviction. “Should I?”

  
“This woman is going to be your partner and the leader of your country and the mother of your children, Zuko. You can’t just…pick someone to please your council.” She sits up, crossing her arms. “And that’s not even mentioning the fact that you’re going to be miserable if you marry someone that you don’t love.”

She doesn’t miss the way his eyes linger on her just a beat too long.

“Yes,” he says, slowly. “But…that’s kind of hard to find.”

_You’ve already found it, Zuko,_ she desperately wants to tell him, but he’s venting; this isn’t the time to put her feelings on him.

“Yeah, I guess.” Katara gazes up at the sky, refusing to meet Zuko’s eyes. “Well, I hope you find it.”

“I do, too,” he says, with a drawn-out sigh. “And I hope we don’t cause an uprising when we get back next month.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Katara sighs. “My family’s going to be relieved, but I don’t even want to _think_ about what’s been going on in the Fire Nation all this time.”

“My uncle is probably ruling in my place,” Zuko sighs, crossing his hands behind his head to use them as a pillow. “Probably doing better than I would be.”

“Don’t say that, Zuko-“

“You don't have to pretend that years of experience wouldn't make him a better Fire Lord than me." He shrugs as if this is a fact that he's accepted and not a slight to his reputation. “They’re probably scrambling to find an heir.”

“It’s probably your sister,” Katara says bluntly.

“It’s probably my sister,” Zuko agrees.

“What do you think they’re going to do when you get back?”

“A lot of unnecessary paperwork, probably.” Zuko almost laughs. “But I _am_ looking forward to watching them scramble to report to the citizens of the Fire Nation that I’m not actually dead, after all.”

Katara ruffles his hair without really knowing why. “Nope, you’re very much alive,” she says. “Having an existential crisis, but alive.”

“Yeah.” He pulls a blade of grass from the ground and absentmindedly fiddles with it. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Anything, Zuko.”

“What’s it going to be like when we go home?” he looks at her pointedly. “You know, um…for us?”

“Well, we’ll be working together,” Katara replies, because it’s just about the only thing that is clear to her right now. “And…we’ll be friends, right? No more weirdness?”

“Of course not. We’re past that now.” He squeezes her hand. “But…it won’t be like this, will it?”

“No,” Katara admits reluctantly. “No, it can’t be.”

“I’m going to miss this.”

“This meaning…?”

“I don’t know, how simple it is here.” Zuko does no more than hold onto her hand, and Katara can’t help but worry – this isn’t normal for them. “And…having no one to answer to but you.”

“Well, if it helps, you’ll always be accountable to me,” Katara teases, though it comes out halfhearted.

“I know, but…not like this.” He shakes his head. “Do…do you think we’ll always be this close?”

The question gapes, a chasm that neither wants to fall into. Something like panic claws at her stomach at the thought of losing this. She doesn’t think he loves her, not if he’s worrying about marriage to a stuffy Fire Nation aristocrat, but she’s convinced that she could be content with this, the closeness they’ve shared these past ten months, even if she had to watch him build a life with another. She _needs_ this – his grounding touch, his presence, the sound of his voice and his laugh – and she doesn’t know how to tell him that she isn’t sure how she’s going to live without it.

“We better be,” she says quietly. “I don’t care if work takes over your life or I lose my ambassadorship or you find someone and get married and you have an entire life that I’m not a part of. I can’t give you up when I just got you back.”

“Katara, do you…do you think that’s what I want?” he peers over at her anxiously. “Do you really think I want that?”

“Want what?”

“To…find someone,” he says shakily, and her heart pounds. “To have a life that doesn’t have you in it.”

“I don’t know.” She presses her back to the blanket and lets out a long sigh. “I don’t really know what life is going to be like when we’re home and…and how much you want might change once that happens.”

She has her suspicions and she wasn’t going to let them out, but she cannot find it in herself not to.

“Are we talking about the same thing?” Zuko asks cautiously.

Katara squeezes his hand. “I think we are.”

“No, Katara, I don’t,” he admits. “I don’t want any of that.”

“Then what _do_ you want?”

“What do I want?” Zuko repeats, almost dazed. “Well, what do _you_ want?”

“Don’t dodge the question, Zuko.”

“Um.” He squeezes his eyes closed as if it’ll make this easier to say. “I want you around.”

“Oh. Thanks.” It’s not as romantic as Katara was expecting it to be, but she’ll take it.

“And I want you to be a part of everything I do.”

“So do I.”

“And what do you want?”

She swallows a lump in her throat. “I want…I want to stay.” She realizes how that sounds and amends her statement. “I mean, I want to stay…with _you,_ not _here.”_

“You mean that?”

Katara nods. “And I want you to know everything that there is to know about me.”

“I want that, too.” His thumb traces circles on the back of her hand.

“But mostly, I, uh…I wish…” she swallows down another lump in her throat. “I wish that… all of this. This…act of ours, um.” Finding her stride again, Katara continues, “I wish it were real.”

Zuko sits again, and Katara follows. His face is lit by the faraway light of the torches along the path, but she doesn’t need it to see the naked affection in his eyes. He takes her hands, and after staring at them for a moment, he blinks up at her, breathing in deeply before he continues.

“Well,” he says, biting his lip to conceal a sheepish smile, “maybe you don’t have to wish.”

“Zuko, you can’t mean that.” Katara closes her eyes, inhaling deeply to center herself. “We only have a month left here and we can’t… _I_ can’t start something that’s just going to have to end.”

“Who said anything about ending?” she’s never seen Zuko look happier than he does in this moment. “I want to build a life with you, and you want that with me, and I don’t see why that has anything to do with where in the world we are.”

“You said it yourself. The council-“

“The council can’t tell me anything,” Zuko tells her, squeezing her hands with enough palpable excitement to make her heart swell close to bursting. “Not when I’m, um.” He trails off, coughing. “Not when I’m…”

“Not when you’re...?” Katara prompts.

He makes sure she’s meeting his eyes before he continues.

“Katara,” he says, as softly as he can, “I’m in love with you.”

“I thought that you might be,” Katara says, suddenly shy in the face of his words even though she’s known that he’s been thinking them for months, “but…I didn’t want to get my hopes up.”

_Say it back, idiot,_ her brain reminds her.

“I mean, because I’m also, um, in love with you, and…it would’ve crushed me if I’d been wrong.”

“You weren’t.” He takes her hands and sets them on either side of his face. “I don’t think you’ve ever been more _right.”_

“Really?” Katara can’t help but laugh. “You… _want_ that? With _me_?”

“So much it hurts,” he laughs, and she falls into his waiting arms, tears pooling in her eyes as she clings to the back of his tunic.

“Then I want it, too,” she sniffs, and he stiffens.

“Katara, are you crying?”

“No,” she fibs, because she couldn’t dream of souring a moment like this with her tears. They give her away, though, when they begin to fall against the back of Zuko’s shirt, and he pulls her into his lap, holding her as gently and as firmly as he can at once.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, his breath hot against her neck.

“Nothing,” she replies, her voice a little shakier than it was when last she spoke. “I’m just…I’m happy, but a little surprised, and…overwhelmed.”

“We can take this slow, then,” he says. “Just…start small, and see where it goes from there.”

“We could,” Katara says. “But I don’t _want_ to, Zuko. It’s been months, and I love you, and I’ve waited long enough.”

“You love me,” he murmurs, awestruck. “I’m never going to get sick of hearing that.”

“I do.” She lets out a watery chuckle. “I do love you.”

He holds her until the tears subside, and she pulls away, biting her lip. Though her face is tilted downwards, she raises her eyes to meet Zuko’s, and she can’t contain her smile at the awe in his expression. “What?” she asks.

“Nothing,” he says. “Just…you.”

“Me?”

“You.” He brushes her hair behind her ear as he’s become so fond of doing. “I can’t believe it was you.”

“I can’t believe you ever thought it _wasn’t.”_

“Neither can I.” His hands find her cheeks again, and he presses his forehead to hers. “Can you make me one more promise?”

Katara nods, though she knows it’s probably ill-advised to promise to promise something before she knows what it is. “I think I can.”

“Promise me,” he murmurs, his thumbs tracing the line of her jaw. “Promise me that we’ll always be this close.”

Katara smiles, her doubts evaporating like fog under the sun as clarity takes over. She takes a moment to respond, searching for the perfect words, and in the end she settles on one.

“Closer,” she vows, and she kisses him.

Katara doesn’t see the broken relief on Zuko’s face as he cradles her face and kisses her with a reverence usually reserved for shrine rituals; all she knows is that every stroke of his lips is a vow, every touch of his hands a seal. She is convinced, as he holds her, that she’d happily drown in the ocean of all that she feels for him in this moment, and if his lips write vows against hers, Katara’s pen declarations that she is not brave enough to speak aloud against his.

“Even closer,” she murmurs against his lips when they part.

He does not leave her wishing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to hold out on that kiss, but I couldn't.


	12. Mono no Aware

_Mono no aware /_ _物の哀れ_

_The “pathos of things” - an awareness of impermanence_

_**_

It feels, tonight, as if eleven months have whittled down to this single moment. They did not discuss much, what they’d do on the last night of their stay; it simply occurred to them. Eleven months of companionship and one of sleeping and waking in each other’s arms have had that effect and they rarely need to ask those questions anymore.

As soon as the sun sets, she takes his hand and they start down the path.

They do not say anything as they walk – there seems to be little _to_ say. There’s no need to cling to each other; now that they know that their feelings are returned, they have no need of the constant reassurance of touch. Twice, one catches the other staring, and they stop to kiss, light and sweet and short but unhurried under the rising moon. But they know where they are going, and both are more interested in absorbing this moment than in clinging to each other. There will be time for that later, when they board the ship tomorrow. Then, it’ll sink in, what they’re going to face when they return, and they will hold each other as they try and fail to sleep. But now, they have an island to map in their minds.

Neither wants to forget this place when they are gone.

Though their destination is barely a mile away, it’s fully dark by the time they reach the cliffs. Zuko moves first to descend the ladders but Katara, with a hand on his forearm, stills him. “Let me,” she says gently, and though he looks reluctant, he nods in concession.

  
He is hers, now, and she watches over him as much as he does her.

When Katara steps from the bottom rungs of the rope ladder and into the sand, she reaches out her hands, though there is no real need to guide him down the final steps of the ladder. Perhaps, she thinks, she will always reach for him. Perhaps it is just the order of things. He reaches for her in turn, when he reaches the beach, and that, too, seems to be the way of their world.

Wordlessly, they take each other’s hands, and though they haven’t brought a blanket to spread out, they sit, watching the waves roll in and out. It’s low tide, and the water doesn’t come up to the place where they sit on the sand. Rather, it laps the sand, and the legato of each wave’s dying gasp lulls Zuko halfway to sleep. First, he leans his head against Katara’s shoulder; then, he rests his head in her lap, and smiles sleepily up at her as she runs her fingers through his hair.

“I’m going to miss this,” he tells her after a few moments.

“They have beaches at home, Zuko,” Katara reminds him, brushing his hair off his forehead so that she can kiss it. “We can do this there, too.”

  
He doesn’t respond, and Katara figures that he has nothing to say to that until she catches his incredulous smile.

“You just called the Fire Nation ‘home,’” he finally says.

Color rises in Katara’s cheeks, though he can’t see it in the dark. “I mean, I do sort of live there now.”

“That doesn’t make it home,” he says, and she catches his meaning.

_That must mean that_ I _make it home._

“No, you do that,” she replies, even though the last time she was in the Fire Nation it couldn’t have felt _less_ like a home. “And besides, home can be more than one place.”

(She pictures him in blue, trying desperately not to let his revulsion show as he chokes down sea prunes to impress her family, and she hopes he knows what she means.)

“Yeah, it can, but…still.”

“But still.” She bends to kiss him, laughing when their noses knock. It’s an unbelievably awkward way to kiss, upside-down and in opposite directions, and after the briefest brush of lips, Zuko sits and pulls her close enough to kiss properly.

It has not surprised him at all to have found that kissing her is perhaps his favorite way to pass the time.

“I’m not going to be happy with you if you stop that when we get back,” Katara teases, her fingers still tangled in the hair at the back of his neck.

“Now, why would I want to do that?”

“Fair point.” She kisses him again, just quick enough to tease. “But I also know that things aren’t going to be this way forever.”

“Well, no,” Zuko admits. “But _we_ don’t have to change anything.”

“Oh? You’re going to kiss me in front of your advisors?” she tugs the collar of his shirt to pull him in and presses a quick, teasing kiss to his lips again.

“I…wouldn’t be opposed to it.”

  
“ _Zuko!”_ Katara smacks his arm lightly.

“I know,” he huffs. “But that would be nice.”

“We’ll make it work.” Now it’s her turn to reassure him. “Not like this, but we’ll make it work.”

“They’ll want me to marry you,” Zuko continues, as if this is nothing at all out of the ordinary.

“I figured as much.” Katara leans her head against Zuko’s shoulder.

He glances over at her. “You’re okay with that?”

  
“Well, we have practice at it, don’t we?” she teases, knocking her shoulder into Zuko’s. “But…yes.”

“Really?”

“Zuko,” she murmurs, taking his hands and tilting her forehead up to touch his. “How could I want anything else now that I’ve had you?”

There is nothing he can say or do in reply and they are completely still, foreheads pressed together as they listen to each other’s breathing. Their breath mingles in the space between them and after a moment so fraught with emotion that neither can move, she lets herself fall, her back hitting the sand. Zuko lets his head rest against her shoulder, and they look up as they always have.

Neither intends to stay, but it is dawn when they wake. They have not moved, and Katara smiles.

It seems all too fitting that she spent both her last sunset and her last sunrise on this island in his arms.

* * *

What seems like the entire village turns up to watch Katara and Zuko take their leave, and the sight of the crowd gathered at the top of the cliffs as they begin their second trek to the beach that day nearly brings her to tears. They’re passed around and embraced like children’s stuffed animals, over and over, until their voices are hoarse from wishing so many people well.

Everyone knows to leave Rochana and Kehale for last, though, and as their hosts pull them into a hug as tight as they can manage without squishing the baby in between then, Katara cries in earnest.

  
“Thank you,” she whispers, squeezing Rochana’s shoulders, and something in the older woman’s eyes tells her that she is as grateful to have known “Kanna” and “Lee” as they were to know here.

“It was my honor, Kanna,” she says, her misty eyes crinkling at the corners, and with that, Katara presses an envelope into her hands and takes her leave before the tears are falling too quickly to let her safely descend the ladder to the beach and the waiting supply ship. Later, the villagers will bring its precious cargo up to the village by hand, but for now they simply watch; she feels eyes on her back as she and Zuko approach the ladders and begin to descend.

Halfway down, she pauses; Zuko asks if something is wrong, but she can’t bring herself to reply. Instead, she lets her gaze drift out to the horizon. Her eyes map every contour of the cliffs, take stock of every vine growing out of their cracks; she memorizes the way the waves look now, at high tide, and closes her eyes to feel the breeze off the ocean lap her cheeks one last time.

She knows, realistically, that this island is going to be no more than a dot on a map to anyone else, nor will this year be more than that on the map of her life. But Wakuine feels like so much _more_ in this moment. After all, she came here promising to heal, and was healed herself. Here she found the kinder, better life that she’d longed for in the Fire Nation; here she felt as if she could grow because it was right to, not because she’d be left behind if she did not. She’s met people here who she’ll never forget. But mostly, she knows that she will remember Wakuine because it brought her to Zuko, and Zuko to her.

After all, she figures, a woman never forgets the place she first falls in love.

“I’m okay,” she says after a moment that stretches on forever, figuring she owes Zuko an explanation. “Sorry about that.”

“No problem,” he says, even though he’s visibly taxed by the effort of hanging onto the ladder for dear life while she stares out at nothing. She continues her descent – she’s talked him into letting her climb first again – and when she reaches the beach, again, she holds out her hands for him. He doesn’t need them, but Zuko lets her help him down anyways, and she loves him all the more for it.

They don’t say a word until they board the ship, explain who they are, and disappear into one of the ship’s vacant cabins. Zuko takes a seat at the end of the bed – a _bed,_ almost impossibly novel after a year of sleeping on the floor – and Katara stands by the door. If she moves, it’ll make this real, and she could not stand that, so she doesn’t sit. Her eyes meet his across the room and she can tell that he’s as unmoored as she is.

“What do you think they’re going to say when they read the letter?” she asks.

Zuko shrugs. “The one where you told them who we were? Well, one of two things.” He smiles to himself, shifting to take off his boots and then leaning back into the pillows with both arms crossed behind his head. “And you should come join me. Bed’s nice.”

“I…I’d rather not,” Katara says, glancing down at the floor. “Anyways. One of two things?”

“You haven’t been on a bed in a year and you won’t even come sit down?” Zuko looks almost hurt.

“I just…I don’t want it to sink in that we’re really leaving, okay?” the strain in her voice is clear. “And if I join you, I’ll…I’ll…”

“Oh.” Zuko nods. “Well, can I join you, then?”

Katara tilts her head. “You mean…here? By the door?”

He shrugs. “Sure.”

“Okay,” she agrees, blushing even though this isn’t exactly abnormal. He crosses the tiny cabin in a few strides, and when he leans back against the door, he opens his arms. She leans against his chest, and though she’d initially resisted, she has to admit that his warmth is comforting.

“Anyways, one of two things.” She can feel the rumble in his chest as he speaks and, if it’s possible, it makes her wish she could sink into him completely. “First of all, this is the hottest gossip they get all year, and the little old ladies won’t stop teasing Rochi and Kehale for letting the Fire Lord and an Ambassador sleep on the floor for months.” He laughs softly, and she has a feeling that’s the best-case scenario. “Or…they’re as mad at us for lying as they have every right to be.”

“Rochana wasn’t,” Katara counters, because even if she’ll never see them again, she can’t bear the thought of the islanders cursing their memory.

“Rochana didn’t know who we were, Katara,” Zuko sighs, carding his fingers through her hair. “The Fire Lord and the Ausa haven’t exactly been on good terms.”

“Well, maybe you can change that.” Katara knows she can’t ease his conscience, but she’s always been good at finding practical solutions. “I mean, not with them, but…see if there are any Ausa enclaves left in the Fire Nation. And if there are, figure out what you can do to start to make amends.”

“I’d like that, if I could find any,” Zuko says. “But I was always told that they’d been wiped out, so I doubt it.”

“There have to be some who escaped notice, right?”

“Well, maybe.” Zuko inhales deeply, then lets the breath go. “But I think that even if I don’t find any, I need to acknowledge what happened, at least.” He rests his chin atop her head. “Publicly, I mean. My predecessors tried to make it seem like they never even existed, and I can’t bring them back, but…I can admit that the Fire Nation is the reason they’re gone.”

“You should.” Katara winds her arms around his waist.

“Yeah?” He shifts his weight to the opposite foot. “I think I’m going to.”

Katara nods, then cranes her neck to press a kiss to his chin. “That alone tells me that you’re a good Fire Lord.”

“What does?”

“That you’re not trying to gloss over your country’s wrongdoings,” Katara tells him, pressing her palm to his chest. “You never have. Sometimes all you can do is admit that you caused harm, and you…always do.”

“Thank you, Katara.” She feels his entire body warm at her praise and can’t help but smile. “I don’t think I necessarily deserve that, but thank you.”

Sensing that there’s no point in trying to convince him, Katara changes the subject. “Think there are any messenger hawks on this ship?”

Zuko shrugs. “Could be. Why, did you want to send word to your family?”

Katara nods. “Yeah. Let them know I’m alive, and hope that word reaches the South Pole before we get back.”

“I should try to get a letter to Uncle, too,” Zuko says, and by unspoken agreement, they make for the deck.

* * *

Zuko watches the pair of hawks take wing, then peel off in opposite directions over the ocean. It’s risky, sending hawks when they’re this far out to sea, but they have to try. Katara grips his arm, and they exchange a brief glance before they turn their eyes back out to the horizon.

“We can only hope, right?” Katara says hoarsely.

“Yeah.” Zuko reaches over to squeeze her arm. “Isn’t that kind of your thing, though?”

She digs her elbow into his side and doubles over laughing when he yelps in pain.

* * *

“’tara, wake up.”

“Too _early,”_ Katara groans, turning over to swat Zuko’s hand away.

“No, K’tara, we’re _here._ ” Zuko sounds a little bit tired, himself – he’s been sleeping just a little later since they boarded the boat – but he still shakes her arm, trying to rouse her. “We docked. We need to disembark.”

“We’re back?” she lifts her head and blinks groggy eyes at him. “That was quick.”

“You’re the one who sped up the trip, love,” he sighs, wrapping his arms around her waist and tugging to get her to move. He can’t help but smile at the way she squirms happily in his arms at the pet name, even though she’s exhausted.

“Fine,” Katara huffs, swinging her legs down from the bed.

* * *

Any sleepiness Katara still feels burns off the moment she steps onto the deck. She’d been so glad to leave Caldera all those months ago that it almost shocks her how relieved she feels when she catches sight of the city again. The smell of spice and smoke lingers in the air and she inhales deeply.

She’d called this home, accidentally, but now it doesn’t seem like an accident at all.

“Ready?” Zuko asks her, and she nods as she takes his arm. She’s not sure if she’s ever been more ready for anything, and her heart beats a steady thrum of anticipation as she steps down onto the gangplank. She isn’t quite looking up, watching her step, but she does when Zuko’s breath catches in alarm.

“What?” she asks, glancing up, but she sees soon enough. “Wait, is that…?”

“Appa,” Zuko finishes, and on closer examination, it would be hard to mistake the animal on the dock – white and furry and nearly the size of their ship – for anything else. “They got our letters.”

Katara doesn’t stay to hear the rest of what Zuko is saying, because if the letters arrived, that means that her family is waiting for her at the end of the gangplank, and she’s not waiting a second longer to see them again. Picking up her skirts, she breaks into a run, and soon she hears Zuko’s pace pick up behind her. For once, though, Zuko isn’t the first thing on her mind, and she keeps running without even a backwards glance.

  
She’s barely reached the bottom of the gangplank before she’s wrapped up in strong, familiar arms with so much force that she almost falls into the harbor, and a lump rises in her throat almost immediately.

“Don’t you _ever_ scare me like that again, Katara,” Sokka says against her hair, and it takes nothing more than that to bring her to tears.

“I’m sorry,” she sobs, her voice breaking. “I’m sorry. I’m _so_ sorry-“

“For what?” he chuckles, but it comes out sounding choked.

  
“Not coming back,” she sniffs, even though she knows it was nowhere near her choice. “Is Dad here?”

  
She can feel Sokka nod against her. “Yeah. Back at the palace.”

“I’m so sorry,” she says again, because it’s all she can think to say, and words don’t seem to be coming easily to Sokka, either, because he says nothing. None of them do, until Aang runs over to attach himself to the two, talking a mile a minute. His relief is palpable and Katara can’t help but smile, opening her arm to let him into their embrace.

“I was in the South Pole when they got your letter,” he explains, holding onto her as fiercely as Sokka had. “We were all so scared, Katara, and I’m so relieved that we got here in time and you’re okay, and-“

“ _Katara!”_ another voice calls out, and Katara smiles through her tears as Iroh adds himself to their hug-pile. “I’m so glad you’re all right!”

“I’m okay,” she murmurs, her voice still wobbling with emotion. She steadies a little when Zuko approaches from behind and wraps his arms around the group (but mostly her). “ _We’re_ okay.”

It only occurs to her later how right she was to call this place home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is really just an exercise in how many excuses I can find for these dorks to touch, and in how many ways I can write that touch, and I’m LIVING FOR IT but also wjdjdkd what is this? This was supposed to be so serious. 
> 
> Let us just say that Hanabi took on a life of its own.


	13. Kogarashi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a hot mess, but it's worth it for having been able to write Z and K as ~mature adults~ instead of overdramatic angsty teenagers who can't communicate. WOW, that feels good after so, so many Drama!ZK fics. (*side-eyes The Waiting Game*)

_Kogarashi /_ _木枯らし_

_The cold wind that signals the arrival of winter_

_**_

It’s nearly winter on their return. Zuko hadn’t realized that it would be, easy as it was to lose track of the days and weeks and months on Wakuine, but, though the Fire Nation never truly gets cold, a chilling wind rustles the leaves outside his window. It’s a small comfort – he’s gotten used to wind, now – but it does little for his nerves.

Suffice to say it that an unannounced yearlong sabbatical is not a good look on a Fire Lord. It takes a good deal of convincing just to assure his advisors and officials that he’s not insane. That was the first explanation they posited, naturally: that he’d lost his mind, forgotten who he was, and run off to some unknown island. He’s clearly in sound mind, though, so they quickly begin the search for other unflattering reasons he may have left. The kindest explanation they come up with is that the strain of his work must’ve been too much for him; others are less so. In some versions of the story, he disappeared so that he would not have to lead the prickly negotiations in Omashu, since he’d been expected to make some embarrassing concessions to the Earth Kingdom. In others, he and his ambassador ran away and stayed gone so that no one would find out that she had fallen pregnant. (Katara had to forcibly restrain him from burning several of the key perpetrators of that story when it had reached his ears.) There are countless explanations of his absence now, and absolutely none of them are true.

All told, it takes several weeks for his advisors to come around to the idea of letting him rule again. And they nearly insist he step down when he posits the idea of making a formal apology to an obscure ethnic group that few have even heard of. Those who have heard of the Ausa insist they’ve been wiped out; those who don’t oppose the measure on principle. But this is one measure on which Zuko has no intention of backing down, and slowly, he turns his officials to reason.

  
Katara, of course, has been the staunchest supporter of this plan from its inception. The young woman whom Iroh had placed on his cabinet to lead the intelligence service in his absence, a graduate of an Earth Kingdom resistance movement during the war, is wholeheartedly in favor as well; she bluntly tells Zuko as much. Some of the advisors, younger ones or those who had always been more reasonable, start to turn, and soon the ones who’d wanted to block the measure are outnumbered and hopelessly outgunned.

Needless to say, he makes his apology.

That display of resolve seems to endear him somewhat to his reluctant cabinet, though they’d never been in favor of the idea. And slowly, though it’s more of an adjustment than Zuko had imagined it would be, he falls back into his former role until no one remembers that he’d ever left. He has his uncle to thank for that, he supposes – he’d kept the country stable enough that he’d had little to clean up upon his return.

  
This is exactly what Zuko had wanted, because he intends to shake things up one final time, and he’s not sure what anyone’s going to think when he does.

* * *

They’re in the garden when he finally works up his courage.

“So,” Zuko starts, staring into his teacup. “Um.”

Katara inches closer so that their thighs are pressed together; it’s the most she can do under the watchful eyes of the guards posted at the door. She wants to curl up in his arms against the cold, but that would doubtless spark unwanted speculation, so she settles for the only touch she can get.

  
“Yes?” she replies, stirring her own tea absentmindedly.

“It’s been…what, six months since we got back?”

“Sounds right. Why?” Katara asks.

“Well, I think things have stabilized, for the most part.” He gives her a weighty look. “So…”

“So?”

  
“I thought this might be a good time to, um…” he licks his lips nervously. “Make…this…” he gestures to her, then to himself. “…public.”

“Oh?” Katara quirks an eyebrow. “I’m surprised that you think the public doesn’t already know.”

  
“Well, we haven’t announced anything. I just thought…”

  
Katara lays her hand against his forearm and smiles when goosebumps raise at the touch. This isn’t Wakuine, where they could kiss or hold or sleep next to each other whenever they felt like it, so even the smallest of touches is a privilege now. “I would still be fine with it, though.”

“Oh?” Zuko smiles, though it’s a wan, nervous thing. “Um. That’s good.”

“Well, there’s no reason not to, I figure,” she says. “Unless you’ve changed your mind?”

“Changed my mind?” his eyes widen. “Agni, Katara, _no!_ What gave you that idea? Have I-“

“No, it’s nothing like that.” She averts her eyes to hide the blush in her cheeks. “I just…didn’t want to presume anything.”

“Oh, all right.” His shoulders visibly sag with relief. “I know I can’t make it as clear as I did back on Wakuine, but I love you. That isn’t going to change.”

“I love you too,” she replies, squeezing his arm. “But we’ve been busy, and I wanted to make sure we were still on the same page.”

“Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Zuko replies, and now it’s his turn to blush.

“Oh?”

“So, um. I know we talked about getting married,” he starts. “But it’s been a while, and…I wanted to see where you stood. On that, um, topic.”

Katara raises her eyebrows wryly, though her smile is as affectionate as he’s ever seen it. “Zuko, are you proposing to me, or just asking a question?”

Zuko blushes profusely and Katara squeezes his arm again, leaning her head against his shoulder as briefly as she can.

“Um.” He stares down into his teacup again. “Which one do you want it to be?”

“I’m all right with either,” Katara says, her palm drifting from his forearm to his hand. She laces her fingers through his and he clings to her hand rather desperately. “Now, what were you saying?”

“Well, I can’t ask something like that of you without warning you that it’s going to be…a lot.” He finally looks up at her, a question in his eyes. “There might be opposition, and even if there isn’t, there’s…a lot of scrutiny. People will be watching your every move, and there’s probably going to be a lot of ugly rumors about what happened on the island-“

“They’re probably all true,” she whispers, her breath ghosting his ear, because it would be unfair if her brother had gotten _all_ of the provocatory genes in their family.

“We didn’t even do anything!” Zuko whisper-shouts, and she laughs and plants a kiss on his cheek at the panic on his face.

“I know we didn’t, love. I’m just teasing.” Eyebrows might be raised if the public were to learn that they’d slept together in only the most literal of senses almost every night for two months, but that truly had been the extent of things. “Anyways, you were saying?”

“All I’m saying is that it’s not going to be easy.” He tilts his head, inviting a response. “I mean, being married to me.”

“I know, Zuko.” Serious again, Katara bites her lip. “Being your ambassador is already hard. It doesn’t really surprise me.”

“So, that said,” he says, smoothing his mantle for no reason, “do you…still want that?”

“To marry you?” Katara nods. “Yes. I do.”

“Okay.” He takes a deep, shaky breath, but she can see that he’s smiling through it. “So, now that we’re on the same page, do, um…” he looks up at her expectantly. “Will you?”

She bites her lip to hide her smile. “You already know my answer.”

  
“But can you still say it?”

She meets his eyes with a challenge in her own. “Only if you ask me the whole question.”

“I did!” Zuko protests.

  
“Will I _what?”_ Katara asks. “You never added the _what.”_

“Fine. Marry me,” he mutters, his face reddening again. “Will you marry me?”

“Of course I will,” Katara replies, beaming, and guards or no guards, nothing is going to stop her from celebrating.

She kisses him with full knowledge that the entire palace will be hearing about this within an hour, and she does not care.

* * *

Understandably, Zuko’s council is rather incensed to hear that their leader has chosen a wife entirely without their input. It isn’t that this development is surprising; even to the densest of advisors, it is not. No one has missed the way the Fire Lord and the Southern Water Tribe ambassador orbit each other. Speculation has been flying since they returned, really, but no one was expecting an engagement to be announced before they’d even had a formal courtship.

(They don’t _need_ one, not in the slightest. They’ve lived and worked together for a year now and they _know,_ beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they want an entire life of that. But they haven’t exactly expressed that sentiment to Zuko’s rumor-happy cabinet.)

But of the thousand people this engagement has stirred up, none are more upset at having been left out of the loop than their friends.

They write everyone who matters to tell them of their engagement, of course. Iroh, back at the Jasmine Dragon in Ba Sing Se, isn’t particularly surprised, and sends his warmest congratulations, but his unsurprised delight is the exception, not the rule. Toph, who’s staying with him, is smug in the letter that she dictates to Iroh for them – “I knew it! WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME YOU HAD A THING GOING ON???” – but rather put-out that she hadn’t even known they were _dating_ before they announced their engagement. Aang is thrilled, if confused, and the approval of Katara’s former admirer (a year of thinking one’s first crush is dead tends to drag one’s emotional missteps out into the light) is more of a relief than either Zuko or Katara will admit. Suki is unbelievably confused but pleased, though she warns them that Sokka’s likely going to freak out, and Ty Lee, who’d apparently caught wind of the news when their letter arrived on Kyoshi Island, adds the word “congratulations” with about seventeen exclamation points (inside a heart, of course) to the bottom of Suki’s reply letter.

As usual, Suki is correct.

“Were you going to tell me that you had a thing for my best friend?!?”, he asks Katara in his reply, and “couldn’t you have TOLD me that you liked my baby sister?!?”, he writes to Zuko. As might be expected, Sokka is as taken-aback by the news that his sister had fallen for the Fire Lord as Zuko himself had been, and apparently it doesn’t sit well with him. And if the dozens of extremely vivid threats he lays out in the event that Zuko fail to properly cherish his sister are any indication, he’s feeling quite conflicted about this turn of events. Every line has Zuko’s face a shade paler, though Katara, reading over the shoulder of the armchair in his study, is all but doubled over laughing.

“You know he doesn’t mean any of this, right?” she says, gasping for air between fits of giggles. “He just doesn’t take surprises well.”

“I can see that,” Zuko mutters.

Katara leans over the back of the chair to kiss his cheek. “He probably cried while he was writing this,” she tells him. “See that watermark in the middle of the third line? I’m pretty sure that’s a tear stain.”

“Um…is that supposed to make me feel better or worse?”

Katara squeezes his shoulder. “His best friend and his little sister are getting married, Zuko. You tell me.”

“Yeah,” he says, his voice barely audible. “They are.”

Katara rests her chin atop his head and wraps her arms around his neck, though the back of the chair makes it a bit difficult. “We are.”

* * *

“Do you ever think about the fact that you’re probably going to wind up in some kid’s history textbook in a hundred years?”

They’re in his study again, seated on the settee along the back wall, when Katara asks. Her legs are curled up under her, and she’s leaning into Zuko, both of her arms wrapped around his waist, and he turns to look down at her.

“Not really,” he replies, stroking her hair. “Why?”

“I was just thinking about what they’re going to say about…this part of our lives,” Katara answers. “If anything at all, that is.”

“You mean our engagement?”

“And everything leading up to it,” Katara specifies. “How are they going to explain that? ‘Two years into his reign, Fire Lord Zuko mysteriously disappeared on the way to a diplomatic conference, reappearing a year later and claiming that he was shipwrecked’?”

“It doesn’t even sound real,” he chuckles. “I doubt they’d include it at all.”

  
He doesn’t say that of all of the parts of his life that might end up on the history books, the ones that brought him to Katara are some of the ones he’d most want included.

“Well, it would be pretty funny if some poor, confused teenager had to write an essay about a past Fire Lord and ended up talking about the one who got shipwrecked, disappeared for a year, found out that a group of people that wasn’t even thought to exist anymore was still around, and married an ambassador right after he got back.” She feels affectionate, for some reason, and kisses his cheek. “That would be some essay.”

“It would be,” he agrees, though the idea of it makes him squirm. “Honestly, though, I’d rather be forgotten.”

  
Katara raises her eyebrows. “Forgotten? But why?”

Zuko shrugs. “History isn’t always kind.”

“I have a feeling that it will be when it comes to you,” Katara remarks, laying her head against his shoulder. “And if it’s not, I’ll beat it with a stick from beyond the grave until it is.”

“I don’t doubt it.” He really doesn’t – his fiancée is as much a force of nature as the element she commands.

“You better not,” she replies, craning her neck to kiss him. She sighs contentedly when she pulls back, eyes still closed as she shifts to rest her forehead against his.

“What is it?” he asks her, leaving all thoughts of legacy behind him. He can’t care less what he’ll leave to the future when she is here in the present, close and real and _his._

  
“It’s just been too long,” she replies.

“It has,” he agrees.

They have time, now, and when he leans in once more, he intends to use it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have two other stories going (OIAL and a surprise one, not for posting) and I *still* have no idea what I'm going to do with myself when I finish this story. Oops.


	14. Koi no Yokan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: there's a wedding. Thus, there is a wedding night. nothing remotely explicit but I also do not ignore what goes down on wedding nights.

****

_Koi no Yokan /_ _恋_ _の予感_

_“Premonition of love” – the feeling, upon meeting someone, that you will fall in love with that person_

_**_

Katara thinks about suffering often.

It’s not the most pleasant topic, she knows, but it hardly stings anymore. She’s seen so much of it that it is almost more familiar than the happiness she’s only recently begun to know; in a way, it is almost natural that she should think about it often. It isn’t as if it does not have a reason to concern her. And, besides, hypotheticals can’t hurt her. It doesn’t sting to ask why some suffer so much, and others so little – not when it is she to whom the latter category applies. It isn’t painful to wonder why some process and react to and heal from their suffering the way they do, while others do it so very differently – not when she has been doing those things for so long that they are routine. The questions will drift into her mind at the oddest of times – when she’s dressing in the morning, over meals, in lengthy meetings – and she accepts their company most of the time.

It is only when those thoughts begin to concern others that Katara no longer wishes to entertain them.

Everyone who loves Katara knows that, were there something she could do to erase the heartaches of their past, she would do it at any cost. That’s just her way: she’ll steel herself and bear anything, but it breaks her heart to see others suffer. It’s why she’s become so good at her job, why she endeared herself to the islanders so quickly in Wakuine. To Katara, to love is to feel another’s suffering as she feels her own; thinking of those harmless hypotheticals as they relate to someone she loves is unbearable.

And yet, as she stands across the altar from her fiancé, that is all she thinks of.

Dimly, Katara remembers the origin of this odd fixation. In the early months of their time on Wakuine, Rochana had said something about the way her husband’s happy adulthood seemed to make up for the hardships he’d gone through in his youth; though Katara never really believed that, the idea stuck with her. She knows that, in all likelihood, any illusion that Rochana had about the effects of her life with Kehale on his feelings about the past was either a figment of her imagination or the carefully-crafted façade of a doting husband. She knows that nothing can change the past, nor can a single person ever truly give enough to outweigh it. She has been a near-orphan, a soldier, a reluctant politician, and, most of all, _alone;_ life divested Katara of any such illusions years ago. But here, on her wedding day, she hopes against hope that there was a kernel of truth in Rochana’s presumption, because _his_ suffering is that which cuts her deepest.

She does not think that there is any price she wouldn’t pay to take the past that haunts him from her beloved, and the part of her which refuses to let go when she knows a cause is lost still hopes that, somehow, she can. She knows it’s almost unbelievably presumptive to imagine that a love as imperfect as hers could ever come close to exceeding the sum total of all that he’s had to suffer, but she still, _still,_ feels like she has to try. So when she meets his eyes, andplainly sees the wonder in them even in the dark, and she knows that she will spend her entire life trying to be the happiness he so deserves encompassed in a single person. Something in the back of her mind is aware that she can’t, but she has to try, because Katara wouldn’t be content with her efforts at even a futile task if they were incomplete.

That’s the way her heart is inclined: Katara doesn’t love in quarters, or in halves. When she loves, she does it wholeheartedly, in all of the _everything_ that it entails. And here, tonight, it is fitting: _everything_ is exactly what he is. 

The Sage hands her a candlestick, and as she and Zuko each tip their candles to one end of a red cord that sits on the altar between them, she vows to give him what happiness he can. He has been unhappy in family, in work, in friendship; even if nothing she can do will mend his old wounds, she can ensure that he will never be unhappy in love.

She wonders if he knows that that is what she means when she says her vows.

* * *

He was not born lucky. Perhaps that is why this union seems so fitting: Zuko could never have been so lucky as he is today had luck had anything to do with it.

All his life, it’s seemed that luck has evaded him. He has faced loss and failure over and over; he’s done so little _right._ Were luck the deciding factor of his place in the world, it would be abysmally low. There are many people, Zuko is fully aware, who would look at his record and write him off, Fire Lord or not.

But Katara has always been different.

Katara was hardly born lucky, either. She’s faced as much as he, though, in his mind, she has hardly failed as often. She knows better than almost anyone that a life that matters is a life that is _built,_ not one that falls into place. She, like him, had no choice but to lay each brick in the foundation by hand. While others’ circumstances let them build cities without lifting a finger, she and Zuko have both carried the knowledge that they will have to toil for their victories all their lives. They’re alike, that way, even though there’s much that they don’t have in common.

And because of that, she knows that love, like luck, is something to be built.

He’d certainly never thought, years ago, that he’d learn that lesson. He’d thought that there was no medium between the grand love affairs in the romantic plays his mother loved to watch and the dull, lifeless, loveless marriages he so often witnessed among those he knew. But what he and Katara have – what he and Katara have _built –_ is nowhere near either. He knows that he loves her beyond all reason, but he doesn’t often find that he acts beyond reason because of it. There were no grand gestures to be had in their unorthodox courtship, and though he’s found himself turning to her like a flower opening its face to the sun, he’s content to bask in her gentle warmth. There is a difference, he’s realized, between conflagration and inundation; they bridge that gap, and meet in the middle. They’ve learned to love each other through words, and through touch, and through shared goals, but never as dramatically as teenaged Zuko would have thought they would.

They’ve built not a raging wildfire that’ll burn and burn and run out of fuel, but the gentle flame of a fireplace, warm and homey and enduring as long as it is stoked. Perhaps there is luck in the great love affairs – really, there _has_ to be, for that intensity of feeling cannot be created or given. But their love is the love of two people who have grown together, who’ve learned how to love one another, and who’ve committed themselves to putting those lessons into practice. It’s taken work, and it’s been _built,_ not bestowed, and it never would’ve happened on the basis of luck alone –

And Zuko wonders, because of that, if he’s luckier to have been born unlucky than he ever could’ve imagined.

He lights one end of a red cord and knows, as it burns down the middle, that the greatest gift he’s ever been given had nothing whatsoever to do with luck.

* * *

“You’re so…you’re so _serious!”_ Sokka sobs, latching onto Zuko’s side and refusing to let go. Katara shoots him a sympathetic glance from her place on his other side. “Why’re’re you so _serious?_ You’re getting _married!”_

“And you’re getting drunk,” Zuko sighs, attempting to peel Sokka’s limbs away from his delicate robes.

“You be’r not be hav’n second thoughts, man,” Sokka whines as Toph, openly smirking, helps to get him off. Suki, rolling her eyes, catches him when he loses his grip and stumbles. “If you’re hav’n sec’nd thoughts, ‘m gon’ kill…’m gon’…’m-“

“I’m not, Sokka.” It seems pointless to address someone so drunk with such solemnity, but Zuko isn’t quite sure how else to react to his brother-in-law’s drunken threats. As if to prove his point, he leans to his left and briefly kisses Katara, though it still makes him blush to be so affectionate in front of his friends. (Total strangers on Wakuine may not have been a problem but those who know him well – those he’ll have to see again, repeatedly, for the rest of their lives – are a different story.) “See? I’m not.”

“You could’ve _told_ me if you wanted to kiss me that badly,” Katara teases.

“Um, I’m kind of trying to avoid having your brother drunkenly stab me with a butter knife.”

“He’s harmless, Zuko,” Katara laughs, resting her chin on his shoulder. She jostles his arm in a vain effort to get him to relax. “You know that. He’s drunk out of his mind and he was crying through the whole ceremony – I doubt he means any of it.”

“But I’m _not_ having second thoughts,” Zuko says earnestly.

“I _know_ that, love.” Katara shakes her head. “Don’t worry so much.” 

  
“Yeah, Angstlord, lighten up,” Toph calls from several seats down.

“ _Angstlord?”_ Zuko crosses his arms and slouches. “Where did _that_ come from?”

Katara, traitorously, seems to find this _hilarious._ “You can’t deny that it’s accurate, Zuko.”

“You’re supposed to be on my side!”

“And I am, darling, but I’m also not above acknowledging a good joke at your expense.”

“You’re lucky that I love you,” he huffs, sinking further into his chair.

“That I am.” She leans over and pecks his cheek. Toph, who cannot see them but can nevertheless hear their displays of affection, looks like she wants to vomit. “But really, are you alright? You look a little nervous.”

“Me?” Zuko straightens. “Um, yeah, I’m good, why?”

Katara frowns. “You’re just acting a little strange, that’s all. But if you say you’re good, I’m sure you are…right?”

He doesn’t want to tell her why he’s out-of-sorts, not when he truly _is_ over the moon and there are so many well-wishers around. “I am.” He takes her hand under the table. “Don’t worry, Katara. Enjoy the party.”

“Enjoy the party?” Katara raises her eyebrows. “Zuko, with the exception of about ten people, this is less of a party and more of a moth-viper pit. I’m not even sure if I’d survive getting out of my seat.”

“Fair enough,” Zuko sighs, because he knows how these things are all too well.

Then they glance over to Sokka, who seems to be trying to get his infant twins to partake in a variety of exotic Fire Nation delicacies which are served entirely for prestige (because they can’t possibly be desirable for _taste)_ as Suki pries him away from the table. Katara calculates an interval of about ten seconds before all hell breaks loose, and without thinking much more about it, she uses the ensuing chaos to pick up and run, taking her husband’s hand and fleeing to his ( _their!)_ bedchambers.

When it comes to weddings, Katara decides, the Ausa have the right idea.

* * *

The door latches with a final _thud,_ and Zuko flinches. He looks for all the world like a startled turtleduck, and Katara narrows her eyes.

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

He doesn’t respond for a moment and her narrowed eyes go wide, frightened. He can’t have that, so he stammers out an “of course,” but it doesn’t even convince _him._

“Zuko, you’re-“

“Can I wash your hair?”

Katara blinks as if she suspects she’s seeing things. “Um…why?”

“Remember how on Wakuine, they used to do that at weddings?” he’s talking far faster than he needs to now, and his breath is coming in short. “How the groom would wash the bride’s hair? I don’t know, I just think it would be nice to-“

“Zuko.” Katara finally comes to him and places her hands on both of his forearms. “Are you…are you nervous?”

“No!” he snaps, but his face betrays him and he adds a sheepish, “…yes.”

Katara’s right hand drifts to his jaw. “What about?”

“You know _what about,_ I’m sure.” He gets like this when he’s nervous; she knows it’s the only way he’d snap at his wife ( _wife –_ it still sounds absurd) on his wedding night.

“You mean-“

“Yeah.” Zuko cuts her off before she can say whatever he evidently doesn’t want to say. “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry, Zuko?” Katara looks up at him with the slightest tilt of her head. “You could’ve told me that you were nervous. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I just…” He lets his topknot loose in one smooth motion. “I want to get this right, Katara. I can’t…I can’t stand the thought of not…not being good enough for you, and I’m not _going_ to be, and I’m just delaying the inevitable but-“

“We don’t have to do anything tonight, Zuko,” Katara tells him, brushing her thumb along his jaw. “But I don’t ever want you to worry that you won’t be good enough for me, okay? You already _are.”_ Now she presses her forehead to his. “You always have been.”

“Katara-“

“Remember what you said when I told you how I felt about you?” she changes tactics, hoping it’ll get better results than mere reassurance.

“Um…not really.”

“That’s okay.” She squeezes his arm so that he’ll know she doesn’t hold that against him. “You said that we could start small and see where things went.”

“And?”

“We still can, Zuko.” She pushes a lock of hair out of his eyes. “If you’re nervous, we should wait.”

“But…I really did want to wash your hair,” he offers almost guiltily.

“Then I would love that.” She’s never exactly thought about it, but it _is_ a sweet tradition. And maybe there’s something to it that they were never told – maybe it’s a slow, easy first step as much as it’s a symbol. So she sheds the outer layers of her elaborate hanfu in preparation, and he follows. And, if he washes her hair twice to prolong the wait (she thinks he might’ve), Katara says nothing. She’ll give him all the time he needs, and it’s not as if it’s some sort of sacrifice, letting him do this.

Besides, Rochana was right about scalp massages.

* * *

In the end, all it takes is the night. An inferiority complex, it seems, isn’t enough to keep Zuko from his wife for long, and he wakes early. In this one incidence, Katara can’t say that she minds being awakened at dawn, and she holds him close after all is said and done, warmer than she has ever felt.

“I love you,” she murmurs against his hair. He clings to her, and she is grateful for it; she is not the one who was nervous, but she wants to be held in his arms as dearly as he wants to be in hers.

“I love you more,” he says, lazily, against her shoulder.

“I wasn’t aware that this was a competition,” she teases gently, kissing the crown of his head.

“’Course it isn’t.” He shifts closer, and she’s too warm with affection to care that his limbs are pinning her in place. “I just…love you…a lot.”

He seems a little delirious, and she can’t help but smile at the probable cause of his odd behavior. “Are you sure you’re all right? You really seem out-of-it.”

“Never better.” She can feel his lips quirk into a smile against her shoulder. “You?”

“Same,” she agrees, her palm working its way up and down his back. “Nothing to be scared of, right?”

“It was a legitimate concern!”

“Well, yes, but it wasn’t true,” Katara reassures him.

He nuzzles his cheek against her sternum. “’m glad to hear that.”

She does not see fit to point out how blatantly obvious it had been, at the time, that his fears were unfounded. She searches for something else to say and lights upon something she knows will work.

“I’m kinda sweaty now,” Katara comments. She takes a lock of her hair in her fingers, sniffs it, and recoils. “Wanna wash it again?”

That has Zuko raising his head from her shoulder to nod eagerly. “I would like that.”

“Me, too.”

This time, when he takes longer than he should, Katara knows he has no ulterior motive. And if the Fire Lord wants to spend his morning combing elegantly calloused fingers through his wife’s hair until every trace of sweat is rinsed away, far be it from her to protest.

* * *

They do that often, in the weeks following the wedding. She’ll ask, at the end of a long day, if he’ll help her wash her hair, and he’ll light up when she shyly asks if she might not be able to wash _his_ this time. It’s their thing, before long, and she thinks that’s rather poetic, that the place which brought them together is shaping their relationship even now. They’re good at it, before long; Zuko, discreetly, begins to order hair oils. (She smells of jasmine or vanilla nearly every morning, to her maids’ endless amusement; they learn quickly not to draw her baths.) So they fall into a pattern that, slowly, turns into a routine, and it’s one that she never would’ve expected but loves nonetheless.

That’s the story of the past year of her life, really: none of it has aligned with her expectations, but there’s nothing about it, in hindsight, that she’d change.


	15. Robashin

_Rōbashin /_ _老婆心_

_A grandmotherly quality of meddlesomeness_

_**_

“You mean ‘twins’ as in… _twins?”_ Zuko looks like he might faint. “As in _two of them?”_

Katara’s answering glare could cut metal. “What else would I mean?”

“Oh.” Zuko stumbles to an armchair across the room. “Oh. Wow. Um, that’s…um…”

“Choose your next words carefully, Zuko,” Katara warns, her hands protectively clasped atop the swell of her abdomen. He’s never been one for caution, though, and she knows before he even opens his mouth that whatever comes out is going to end in disaster.

“That’s great,” he says, his face blanching. “Um. Two…wow. I, uh, did not expect that.”

Katara isn’t in the mood for word-mincing right now. She’s exhausted, uncomfortable, and far more panicked than she wants to let on, and her husband is doing nothing to help matters. So she’s not particularly concerned with sparing feelings when she says, “you seem upset.”

  
Zuko’s eyes widen and he shakes his head emphatically, as if he can convey his enthusiasm by mere force of gesture. “No! Not at all!” he hurriedly insists, joining her on the bed and taking both of her hands. “It just…really is unexpected.”

Katara softens at the panic on her husband’s face and nods in understanding. “It is,” she concedes. “I can’t say that I’m not a little scared, too.”

“You are?”

She dips her head in a weak nod. “Just because this is something I’ve always wanted doesn’t mean it’s not terrifying.” She glances back up at him. “Especially now that I’m getting thrown into the thick of things with two instead of one.”

_Let’s hope they take after siblings in your family and not mine,_ Zuko thinks, but he knows that to say that aloud would be a death sentence. “Yeah,” he says instead.

“But…we wanted more than one kid anyway, right?” she glances at him hopefully. “So…this is good?”

  
He sets the hand that rests closer to Katara on her stomach and his other on her shoulder. “Yeah. This is good.”

  
It’s a little bit hard to believe, in the moment. He’d never known the particular breed of fear he’d felt when Katara had told him she was expecting before and part of him still feels it, even five months later, every time he sees her. Parenthood is as daunting a challenge as he can imagine and he hasn’t grown any less terrified that he will not rise to it in the past months. It isn’t as if his examples of parenting have been stellar and no reassurance can divest him of the fear that he’ll fall into those patterns again.

But he _does_ want this, Zuko realizes. He loves their child – _children –_ already. How can he not? They’re _theirs._ He cannot wrap his head around the fact that he and the women he loves more than anything in his world made an entire person. _Two_ entire people, now. But he loves them, even as hard as their existence is to comprehend.

He rests his cheek against her stomach and she cards her fingers through his hair.

“We can do this, right?” she asks, her voice small and scared and fragile, and he kisses the distended skin of her abdomen in reply.

“I think so.”

* * *

If the servants think it odd that their employer requests a basin of clean water hours after the birth of his children, they don’t say anything. There’s something about the Fire Lady’s soft, exhausted smile that lets them know not to ask, not to linger.

None of them stay to watch as Zuko heats the porcelain basin and washes the sweat of labor from his wife’s hair.

* * *

“But _I_ wanna be the Fire Lord!”

“No, you don’t, sweetie.” Zuko peers over the top of the scroll he’s reviewing to find his daughter looking up at him with pleading blue eyes.

“But it’s not fair!” she cries, her lower lip wobbling. “I dunno why ‘Zumi gets to be Fire Lord and not me!”

“Izumi is old-“

“ _BUT WHY?!?”_

“-er than you.” Zuko sighs. “Being the Fire Lord really isn’t much fun, Kanako. You aren’t missing out.”

He knows very well that this perfectly logical argument won’t do a thing to placate her. Kanako does not care about the title outside of her resentment for the fact that it will belong to her twin sister and not to her. But he is, frankly, unsure what else to try.

“Not fair,” Kanako pouts, then trots off to find her sister.

He sighs, thanking his lucky stars that, in spite of her indignation at being passed over for the dubious honor of inheritance, Kanako adores her sister. True to form, eight-minutes-older Izumi has always been the leader of their small but growing brood, but Kanako doesn’t seem to mind. She’s always craved attention, but she doesn’t seem to want control; the younger of the twins is perfectly content to let her sister take the reins.

Both of her parents hope that they’ll stay that way.

(He holds onto that hope until it shatters six weeks later, when Kanako discovers that she is soon to be a middle child.

This, predictably, is not her favorite development.)

* * *

The entire idea of this, Zuko and Katara agree, is absolutely ridiculous.

Watching Izumi fuss with her heavy robes as Kanako, outfitted in lighter silk, works the room, the Fire Lord and Lady exchange a look that lets both know, unambiguously, that they agree that this is the most ridiculous waste of resources in the world. It’s customary for heirs to the Fire Nation throne to be presented to the world at a formal event shortly after their sixteenth birthdays, but neither the twins nor their parents had liked the idea. (Well, perhaps Kanako, who’d always known how to dazzle a room, had.) These events are stuffy and fussy and a million other unpleasant things, and Izumi, always so awkward, has been dreading her debut for months. True to form, she’s hiding out at as great a distance as she can.

Though it’s not ideal, her parents can’t blame her. It’s a thinly-veiled secret that every noble family with an eligible son wants to use this opportunity to get in the Crown Princess’ good graces, for she’s old enough to be courted now, and Izumi doesn’t bother trying to hide her contempt of the idea. She’s a studious girl, one who prefers books and bending practice to practically everyone but her twin sister and their younger brother, and parties of this size make her as nervous as they had Zuko at her age. Kanako, of course, has a line of partners a mile long, all waiting to dance with her, and she’s having the time of her life. Izumi, though, carefully ignores every potential suitor who comes her way, until one.

This boy – clearly close to her age, unlike most of her would-be suitors – is as reluctant to speak to the princess as she is to speak to him. He’s holding a book, and but for his outraged mother marching him over to Izumi, he doesn’t look like he’d have approached a single guest tonight at all. “This is your _chance,_ Haruki,” his mother snaps in his ear, not even bothering to make herself inconspicuous, and he blushes profusely, pushing up his glasses. She parks him in front of the Crown Princess and promptly leaves.

Izumi watches the scene in fascination.

“Hi,” she says, eschewing formality. “You don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to.” She looks him up and down. “Agni knows _I_ don’t want to talk to anyone.”

“Um.” Haruki dips into a perfunctory bow. “Crown Princess Iz-“

“Please don’t do that.”

He straightens. “Oh, okay.”

She looks to the book in his hands with interest. “What are you reading?”

He glances down at its cover, than blushes. “Um, it’s, um, a…historical novel.”

“A historical novel?” Izumi looks up in interest. “I like detective novels better, but I might’ve heard of it. What’s it called?”

“Um.” Haruki shoves his hands in his pockets, still blushing profusely. “The, um, Schemes of Fire Lord Satoko.”

  
Izumi’s eyes light up. “I _have_ read that one! I loved it as a kid,” she says, and suddenly socializing doesn’t seem so bad. That book is one of her favorites: when she was young, she loved the story of a Fire Lady so fed-up with her husband’s incompetence that she outwits their entire court to wrest the power of the crown for herself. She’d always thought Satoko was a model Fire Lord: she ended the deadliest famine in years with her clever agricultural policies, and Izumi’s always secretly loved the idea of going off on difficult courtiers the way Satoko does. “I love the scene where she shames Lord Kiru in front of the whole court,” she adds, lest he need encouragement to keep talking.

“I like the one where she disguises herself as a farmer and goes to the country to see how her people live,” Haruki adds, smiling shyly.

“I think-“

“Haruki, I instructed you to dance with her!”  
  
Both teenagers cringe at his mother’s interruption but she extends her hand to him, unwilling to cause any more problems with his mother. (Evidently, she’s a difficult woman.)

It’s highly improper to spend six dances with one partner, but so is bringing a book to a banquet. Neither cares.

On the sidelines, the princess’ parents exchange looks that are about half apprehension and half relief.

* * *

“I think you should consider stepping down.”

Izumi’s expecting resistance, but one look at her father’s haggard expression, worn from days without sleep, tells her that she won’t find it. “You’re ready?” he asks, and Izumi nods.

She’d better be. She’s nearly forty and a mother of two – heirs requirement, check – and she’s been training for this her entire life. Izumi doubts she’ll ever be more ready, and her parents…

Well, charitably, it’s about time they be able to enjoy their golden years.  
  
“You have better places to be than your study, Dad,” she says, affection crinkling the corners of her eyes. “I think you should have a chance to…I don’t know, enjoy life a little.”

His grateful smile in reply is the only assent she needs.

* * *

They dance at the coronation. It’s quite the sight, the sixty-five-year-old ruling couple keeping up with the elaborate steps of the dances they’ve been performing for four decades now, and they’ve rarely looked happier than they do now.

“Thank you, Katara,” Zuko whispers against his wife’s shoulder, holding her close.  
  


“For what?”

He turns to her, cradling her chin as he’s always done. “Giving me the privilege of ruling by your side.”

“Old sap,” she scoffs, but she gives him a kiss for his trouble.

(Neither wants to call attention to the tears in their eyes.)

* * *

They make their first stop in the South Pole. On the surface, it’s a visit with Sokka and Suki and their nieces and nephews, but it’s as much a diplomatic mission as anything. The presence of the late Avatar’s widow, a former Fire Nation official – superbly competent, superbly overworked even in retirement – who he’d met on a mission no one remembered anymore, is indicative of that.

Katara knows the moment she lays eyes on the pugnacious little girl who will one day master all four elements that this visit won’t be ending anytime soon, and it does not.

It comes to an end, though it takes ten years, when Zuko begins to beg for a vacation somewhere warm, and both know exactly where they need to be.

* * *

There are steps carved into the cliffs now. It’s a vast improvement over the rope ladders; both have a hearty laugh at the memory of their younger selves scrambling up those cliffs, baskets full of fish on their backs. The steps mean that few people can ascend or descend at once, though, so the curious crowd that gathers at the sight of a Fire Nation ship in the bay has to wait for their visitors to come to them.

They aren’t expecting to be recognized – it’s been fifty-odd years since they were here. But both realize with sinking stomachs, when the crowd begins to part as someone shoves through it, that they have been, and whoever’s recognized them is probably not happy that they’re back. Instinctively, Zuko extends a protective arm across Katara’s body, though she tries to swat it away to meet the challenger head-on.

But when she comes to the front of the crowd, there are tears in her eyes, and a woman about the twins’ age at her heels. She’s barely in view when she speaks.

“I am _always_ going to have to live with the fact that I let the Fire Lord sleep on my floor!”

They glance to each other, then grin, and Rochana’s smile is as bright as their own. “It’s just Zuko,” Zuko responds. “The Fire Lord’s my daughter.”

“Oh. I guess I’m off the hook, then,” Rochana teases, and the crowd, apprehensive before, seems to warm. If their beloved matriarch knows these people, they figure, they must be all right.

And that is when Zuko and Katara know that, in almost all of the many ways that they can be, they are home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We've come to the end of this story, and I'm...feeling a lot of things. This is by no means the biggest project I've ever taken on (*side-eyes the TWG-verse...again*), nor the most ambitious, or the one I had the highest hopes for. But it will always have a special place in my heart. When I began to write Hanabi, I thought I would write a serious, angsty slow-burn about the process of falling in love, and how a mature, healthy, _lifelong_ relationship is built. The finished product...wasn't quite what I thought it would be, but I actually prefer it this way. "Hanabi" is an expression of a soul-deep wish to live in a kinder world, to experience the kind of love that is gentle and generous and fulfilling; that's the nature of the world and the love story that I created, and I hope that it provided you all with as much joy and comfort as it did me. I'm an absolute gremlin for validation but this was one story for which I honestly did not feel that I needed it. Having people tell me that they were enjoying it was wonderful, yes, but the process of telling this story was so fulfilling on its own that it was only a side-benefit. 
> 
> I wrote a story for people who wish that goodness weren't so rare in this world, especially for myself. Nevertheless, I hope other such people found it, and to those who did: thank you. It meant more to me to know that this story moved you than you'll ever know.


End file.
